Department of Human & Community Development | Illinois

Academic Training

I received my PhD in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Missouri and completed a post-doc fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. I joined the faculty at the University of Illinois in 2003.

Research Interests

My interests center on intimate partner violence, separation/divorce, and post-divorce parenting. My current research focuses on how abused women negotiate coparenting with abusive former husbands. I am particularly interested in how type of marital violence relates to coparenting dynamics after divorce. I also study intimate partner violence in the lives of lesbian mothers. My other projects focus on conducting child custody evaluations and on abused women’s decisions about their pets when they seek shelter from violence.