Dr. Beth Russell

I am an Associate Professor in the HDFS department, the Director of the Center for Applied Research in Human Development, and the program coordinator for the Certificate program in Family Life Education (CFLE), offered through the National Council on Family Relations. I mentor graduate students through the following program specializations:
Health and Well-being
Parenthood and Parent-Child Relationships
Prevention and Early Intervention

I am currently accepting graduate student applicants for the 2020-2021 academic year.

Research Interests: Self-regulation in normative and at-risk samples

I study the development of self-regulation in normative and at-risk samples, with a specific focus on the regulation of distress. I believe the development of self-regulation begins as other-regulation in infancy, moves through mutual or co-regulation in early childhood and becomes increasingly self-regulation in adolescence — until young adults partner and/or become parents, thereby moving back into close relationships that rely on mutual regulation.

The majority of my work falls into the study of:

1. parent-child mutual or co-regulation where child outcomes are heavily scaffolded by the caregiver; and
2. self-regulation in adolescence and early adulthood where maturity demands for individuation bring self-regulation to the forefront.

Current topics include

• mindfulness interventions to bolster self-regulation
• substance use and recovery
• families coping with a chronic health condition
• parenting in the context of cumulative disadvantage

Morica Hutchison, M. A.

Morica (Rica) is a third year doctoral student in the Human Development and Family Sciences PhD program. Broadly, her research interests include mindfulness interventions, harm reduction for substance abusing youth, and resilience. She is also currently interested in examining how individual factors such as mindfulness, and emotion regulation abilities relate to engagement in a variety of health behaviors. Rica is a research assistant for Dr. Russell’s NIAAA-funded study examining stress and coping in college students. Rica also currently works as a Marriage and Family Therapist at Community Health Resources as a child outpatient therapist.