2016-2017 Events

ConC

C-FAHR is pleased to announce an exciting set of discussions, symposia, and workshops for this coming academic year.  These events are aimed at highlighting, fostering, and supporting interdisciplinary research teams studying topics related to families and health.  

September 12 330 to 530 Location:  LNCO 1100	Fall Symposium Introducing the C-FAHR Cluster Hire  Daniel Adkins (Sociology), Pascal Deboeck (Psychology), Bruce Ellis (Psychology & Anthropology), Kim Kaphingst (Communication & Huntsman Cancer Institute) Research Presentations by 2015 Pilot Grant Awardees ·       Does Family Caretaking Inflate the Gender & Immigrant Health Gaps?  Megan Reynolds (Sociology) & Norm Waitzman (Economics):  ·       Promoting Resilience After Stroke in Survivor/Caregiver Dyads: Developing an Intervention:  Alexandra Terrill, Beth Cardell, Lorie Richards (Occupation Therapy), Justin MacKenzie (Physical Medicine Rehabilitation), and Maija Reblin  Member Mixing & Mingling
October 17 4 to 5 Location:  CNB 2300	Data & Design Discussion -- What should I do with my data?   Julie Fritz (Physical Therapy) and Pascal Deboeck (Psychology).  This will be an interactive discussion where one researcher presents his/her data and research design and one methodologist (plus the audience) brainstorm together potential analytic strategies to answer specific research questions.
November 14 4 to 5 Location:  LNCO 1100	Data & Design Discussion -- Utilizing environmental data for health research Alex Philp  from Upstream Research http://www.upstreamresearch.com/ will highlight the data and tools they are developing to monitor environmental influences on health and well-being.
December 5 4 to 5 Location:  HSEB 4100C	Research Presentations by 2015 Pilot Grant Awardees ·         Maternal Depression: Epigenetic Pathways to Child Problem Behavior  Elisabeth Conradt & Sheila Crowell (Psychology), Bob Silver and Jeanette Carpenter (OB-GYN), David Nix (Bioinformatics), Hillary Coon (Epi & Genetics) ·         The Air of Heirs:  Shared Environment, Shared Genes & Health Effects of Air Quality:  Heidi Hanson & Jim Vanderslice (Dept Family Prev Medicine), Ken Smith (Family & Consumer Studies & Huntsman Cancer Institute)
January 23 4 to 5 Location:  TBA	Grant Writing Resources ·         Panel Discussion:  What services and resources does the CCTS provide?   ·         Forming new teams to address active NIH solicitations
February 27th 4 to 5 Location:  CNB 2400	Data & Design Discussion -- Research Using the Utah Population Database Ken Smith  (Director, Utah Population Database) will give an overview of the UPDB, highlighting examples of research projects done by C-FAHR related teams
March 27 330 to 530 Location:  CNB 2400	Spring Symposium Challenges in Recruiting & Retaining Families for Research Katherine Baucom (Psychology) & Paul LaStayo (Physical Therapy) Poster Session.  All C-FAHR members are welcome to participate; C-FAHR pilot grant & grad student awardees are expected to participate Member Mixing & Mingling

Members, if you have any ideas for events that you would like to see C-FAHR offer, please let us know.  Provide a comment below, or reach out to Cindy (cynthia.berg@csbs.utah.edu) or Becky (rebecca.utz@utah.edu) with your ideas.

The Cluster is Complete

C-FAHR started as part of the "Transformative Excellence Program" which granted us the resources to cluster-hire a set of scholars who further the interdisciplinary research strengths on our campus related to families and health. We are pleased to introduce you to our new hires.

    

KIM KAPHINGST, PhD

Professor of Communication

Dr. Kimberly Kaphingst is a health communication researcher. Her research interests are in health literacy, cancer communication, family history, and the communication of genetic and genomic information. She led a series of intramural studies at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) that examined predictors of individuals' understanding of and responses to genetic information across various disease outcomes. She was a Co-Investigator on the study team for the intramural Multiplex Initiative at NHGRI, a study designed to examine uptake of multiplex genetic susceptibility testing among a population-based sample of healthy adults ages 25-40. Dr. Kaphingst led the working group that developed the Multiplex genetic susceptibility test results feedback strategy and examined participants' use of the study website and how this affected their decision making for uptake of the Multiplex test. She also led an analysis of participants' recall and comprehension, affective responses, and information seeking and health behaviors following receipt of the test results feedback. Dr. Kaphingst was the Principal Investigator on a recently completed study (R01 CA168608) to examine preferences for return of genome sequencing results among young breast cancer patients. She also co-led a supplemental project to the Program for the Elimination of Cancer Disparities grant (3U54CA153460) at Washington University, which examined preferences for models of consent for secondary research uses of biospecimens among a diverse sample of women. She previously led a qualitative investigation of African American women's reactions to and use of two family history tools. In her current work, Dr. Kaphingst is investigating understanding of shared familial risk and family communication among Caucasian, Latino, and Pacific Islander families.  Dr. Kaphingst joined the University of Utah faculty in 2015.

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The next three hires are joining the faculty at the University of Utah now, at the start of the 2016 academic year.  Welcome!


BRUCE ELLIS, PhD.  
Professor of Psychology 

"As an overarching goal of my career, I seek to leverage knowledge from both evolutionary biology and developmental science to address core issues in developmental psychopathology, especially in relation to child and adolescent health. This work employs life history theory to model stress-health relations over the life course.  A major emphasis of my research has been the development of Biological Sensitivity to Context theory and its recent extension the Adaptive Calibration Model, which focus on how our biobehavioral systems respond to specific features of family environments and the larger ecological context.  My empirical work examines the impact of fathers, family relationships, and socioecological conditions on children’s biological stress responses, timing of pubertal development, risky adolescent behavior and cognition, and related health outcomes.  In addition to this basic research, I am interested in real-world applications in the form of theoretically-based interventions."

PASCAL DEBOECK, PhD
Associate Professor of Psychology

"Trained as a quantitative psychologist, I work to develop, improve, study and apply statistics to social science and medical data.  My interests are focused on the development and application of methods for the analysis of intensive, intraindividual time series. In particular I focus on the development and application of derivatives, differential equation modeling, and dynamical systems concepts to time series that have characteristics common to behavioral and some physiological measures such as relatively low sampling rates, large amounts of measurement and/or dynamic error, and unequally spaced or missing observations. In analyzing such data, I often focus on questions related to the role of variability and less-stable change (the “error” in many statistical models). These methods have the potential to inform theories that address how, when and why people change over time. I have worked with a range of applied topics including: resiliency and affect in older adults, health and depression as long-term outcomes of daily stress processing, marital quality and child well-being, sustained attention while driving, adult attachment, the coupling of maternal depression with child behavior, modeling of proteins associated with Alzheimer's, mood change in patients with rapid cycling bipolar disorder, and the motion of dancing individuals and dyads."

DANIEL ADKINS, PhD

Assistant Professor of Sociology

Dr. Daniel E Adkins was awarded his PhD in Sociology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has since been supported by various NIH grants, including an NIMH K01 Career Development Award providing him with five years of post-doctoral training in statistical genomics and bioinformatics at the VCU Center for Biomarker Research and Precision Medicine. His research, broadly quantitative and interdisciplinary, integrates social inequality perspectives on stress with genomic big-data to map how social disadvantage becomes epigenetically encoded, thus influencing downstream gene expression, health, and behavior. He has published over 40 peer reviewed articles in high impact sociology, psychiatry and genetics journals.

 

as a quantitative psychologist, I work to develop, improve, study and apply statistics to social science and medical data.