As a developmental psychopathologist, my research focuses on the developmental processes that contribute to risk or resilience across the lifespan. I have long-standing interests in understanding and ameliorating the effects of trauma and violence on child development and family processes, including studies of interparental conflict, family violence, maltreatment, parent-child discord, and other forms of trauma exposure. My larger program of research has included investigations of the ways in which risk factors affect relationships among family members, such as in the study of parent-child boundary dissolution, as well as implications of these family processes for youths' own intimate relationships, such as in the study of risk and protective processes in the intersections among family dynamics, personality, and romantic relationships in adolescence and emerging adulthood. I also have an abiding interest in the study of resilience--uncovering the protective factors that allow children to overcome the risks associated with family stress and trauma will help us to design intervention and prevention programs that are developmentally sensitive and effective in real-world settings.
