Family and Social Change

Roy’s research focuses on the life course of men on the margins of families and the work force. Through a mix of participant observation and life history interviews, he has explored the intersection of policy systems, such as welfare reform and incarceration, with parents' caregiving and providing roles. He has examined contextual barriers to involved fatherhood, including neighborhood factors that constrain physical mobility of poor young men in a 2004 paper in Social Problems.

Rashawn Ray's work addresses three key areas: the determinants and consequences of self-evaluated social class, men’s treatment of women, and how racial stratification structures social life. He is currently examining how racially mixed and segregated communities influence physical activity levels across racial/ethnic groups and contribute to healthy lifestyles and obesity rates.

Dr. Julie Park is currently Associate Professor of Sociology and the Asian Americans Studies Program at the University of Maryland. Prior to joining the Maryland faculty in 2008, she was a research assistant professor in the School of Policy, Planning, and Development and the Associate Director of the Population Dynamics Research Group at the University of Southern California.

Mitch Mokhtari has a wide range of research interests, skills and experience including economic development, health system strengthening (HSS), and public financial management (PFM). His theoretical and quantitative research focuses on reducing healthcare costs, childhood obesity, alcohol use, and fiscal reform. In the past, he has taught economics and economics of transition at Princeton University, the New Economic School, Russia, Eurasia University, Kazakhstan, and University of Houston. Mokhtari has over 25 years experience working on international development across 15 countries.

Kris Marsh received her PhD from the University of Southern California in 2005. She was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina before joining the faculty of Maryland in fall 2008. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology, and affiliate faculty of the Maryland Population Research Center, Department of Women’s Studies, and African American Studies Department.

As a family demographer working in Africa, Dr. Sangeetha Madhavan has made substantial contributions to our understanding of extended family systems, parenting, household dynamics, and child and adolescent well-being. She currently serves as the Principal Investigator for an NICHD R01 project that seeks to understand the interactional effects of marriage and kinship support on young children’s development in poor urban communities in Nairobi, Kenya.

Kenneth Leonard is a development economist specializing in health care delivery and human capital in rural Africa. His work investigates how institutions, NGOs, and social networks affect access to vital services, using fieldwork and original data collection across multiple African countries.

Recent Accomplishments
Member, National Initiative Management Team, Financial Security in Later Life, United States Department of Agriculture, Cooperative Research Education and Extension Service.
Leader, Maryland Saves Coalition
Director of Research, National Institute for Personal Finance Employee Education, Virginia Tech.
Co-editior, Personal Finances and Worker Productivity, Virginia Tech.
Conducted and published research in the area of workplace financial education and financial well-being.

Dr. Howard received her doctorate in Public Health from the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in 1994. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Minority Health Research in Baltimore, Maryland. Howard also holds a B.S. in Human Nutrition from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and a M.P.H. from the University of Hawaii in Manoa, where her area of concentration was International Health and Cross-Cultural Health.

Sandra Hofferth, Professor Emerita, School of Public Health, and Research Professor, Maryland Population Research Center, is a former Director of the Maryland Population Research Center (2008-2012) and a former co-Director of the Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1994-2001). In 2010 she served as Vice President of the Population Association of America. Her research interests include American children's use of time and later health outcomes, work and family, fathers and fathering, and family policy.