Faculty News

Assistant Professor Fernanda Cross will receive an Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award from the 2021 Society for Research on Child Development. Cross’ dissertation examines how the roles of sociocultural stressors, such as discrimination and documentation​ status, influence parental ethnic-racial socialization practices in Latinx​ immigrant families. Selection for the awards is based on criteria that included the quality of the dissertation, publications emerging from the project, and the nominee’s current position and engagement in the field of child development research.

Professor Joe Ryan is quoted in the American Public Media story “How Utah has let its many youth treatment centers off the hook” about the use of horse troughs as “therapeutic discipline” at a residential treatment center for young women in Utah. Ryan said “It clearly was humiliation."

Ryan reviewed Utah state and law enforcement reports on trough discipline used “If that's not humiliating public shaming, I don't know what is."

Edie Kieffer and a team from the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation study on the impact of dental coverage is featured in the latest issue of ADA News. Their research suggests that Medicaid’s dental coverage has improved enrollees’ health in ways that have helped them seek a new job or do better at the one they have. “Many enrollees spoke passionately and sometimes joyously about how having dental benefits had changed, and in some cases, saved their lives,” said Kieffer.

PhD student Garrett Pace, Associate Professor Shawna Lee, and Professor Andrew Grogan-Kaylor's research was cited in public policy discussions in Colombia, leading to a ban on corporal punishment of children in that country.  Colombian legislator Julián Peinado Ramírez shared his memo on Twitter, which references Grogan-Kaylor, Lee and Pace’s 2019 work. The research and ban were also featured on Radio Santa Fe 1070 AM Bogotá.

Professor Luke Shaefer’s book “$2.00 a Day'' helped lay the groundwork for current antipovery legislative efforts, including President Biden’s American Rescue Plan.  A recent New York Times article describes how Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) arranged for all his Democratic Senate colleagues to receive a copy of the book.

Shaefer’s research was also cited in a New York Times article detailing how the availability of safety net programs have compounded the uncertainty and hardships faced by vulnerable populations during the pandemic — especially for those struggling with poverty and depression. “When the government acted, things got better — when the aid went away, things got worse,” he said.

Associate Professor Terri Friedline and her co-author argue in their commentary “Powerful alternatives to predatory lenders: Postal Service banking and public banks” that the payday and auto title loan industry exists only because there are so many communities in the United States lacking even one traditional bank. The commentary was published in the Chicago Sun Times.

Lecturer Ayesha Ghazi Edwin’s letter to the editor “Race and ethnicity shouldn’t determine women’s pay” was published in the Detroit News. Edwin discusses Asian American/Pacific Islander women’s Equal Pay Day writing “If we are to close the pay gap, we need to strengthen equal pay laws to allow women to discover and fight against pay discrimination.”

Joe Ryan is a member of a new task force created by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) charged with preventing and eliminating systemic racism in the state's child protection system. He will chair the data subcommittee.