Program Faculty
Dr. Mark Benson
Ph.D., University of Minnesota
Associate Professor of Human Development
Dr. Benson's research focuses on parent-adolescent relationships through several lenses for examination. His work explores cognitive, affective, and behavioral processes drawing from attachment, attribution, family systems, and family coercive process theories. Outcomes of interest include adolescent identity, autonomy, intimacy, sexuality, and achievement.
Dr. Isabel Bradburn
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
Director of Research, Child Development Center for Learning and Research
Dr. Bradburn studies children’s social development and the contexts of development (e.g., family, preschool). Other research interests include family and personality factors involved in late adolescent complex thinking and attachment across the lifespan.
Dr. Victoria Fu
Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Professor of Human Development
Director, Child Development Center for Learning and Research
Dr. Fu’s research focuses on how children and young adults learn and make meaning of what they have learned from a constructivist, inquiry based perspective. She also studies teaching as transformation of self and children’s social, emotional and cognitive development in play and diverse settings.
Dr. Christine Kaestle
Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
M.S.P.H., University of California, Los Angeles
Assistant Professor of Human Development
Dr. Kaestle’s research addresses prevention and health promotion among adolescents and young adults from a life-course perspective. Her research interests include adolescent risk behaviors, human sexuality, sexual health, intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and media effects.
Dr. Kee Jeong Kim
Ph.D, Iowa State University
Assistant Professor of Human Development
Dr. Kim’s research interests are in developmental trajectories of antisocial behavior and depression from adolescence to early adulthood, family processes of risk and resilience in adolescent development, and the application of advanced statistical methods to the analysis of longitudinal data.
Dr. Cynthia Smith
Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Assistant Professor of Human Development
Dr. Smith’s research examines young children’s social and emotional development. She is interested in patterns of interaction between young children and their parents and how these interactions are associated with young children’s emotional and behavioral regulation. Her work also explores factors in the parents’ lives (including social support, parenting stress, and parent personality) that are associated with differences seen in their parenting behaviors.