Family and Child Studies Faculty

Courses Taught (Selected:

• FCS 305: Research and evaluation in family and child studies
• FCS 502: Developmental issues in families: Infancy & early childhood
• FCS 503: Seminar in human growth and development
• FCS 546: Family Systems Theory

David J. Atencio is an Associate Professor in the Department of Individual Family & Community Education in the College of Education. As a New Mexico native, graduate of UNM’s Psychology Department, and Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, David considers himself fortunate to be a member of the College of Education faculty since 1998. David’s research focuses on the development of self-regulation, motivation, and mindfulness in young children. He has provided national and state leadership in improving professional development systems for early care, early education, and family support professionals. Together with his wife and daughter, he is a music minister in his church, a role he has held since he was in seventh grade.

Courses Taught:

• FCS 105: Introduction to Family Studies
• FCS 315: Adolescent Development in the Family

Alexandra Davis received her PhD from the University of Missouri in 2016 in Human Development and Family Science. She has been involved in research projects examining sociocultural and contextual factors related to positive functioning, including family relationships and prosocial/moral development, among ethnic minority and low-SES youth and adolescents.

She loves to travel and spend time with friends and family. She is also a sports fan and enjoys playing basketball in her free time.

Courses Taught (Selected):

• FCS 412: Fathering
• FCS 484: The Sociocultural Context of Children and Families
• FCS 517: Family Interaction Theories

Ziarat Hossain is a Professor of Family and Child Studies and Regents’ Lecturer at the University of New Mexico. He teaches developmental, theoretical, and cross-cultural courses in Family and Child Studies. His research systematically documents patterns of fathers’ involvement in the family across cultural communities. He is a former Society for Cross-Cultural Research president and Fulbright Scholar. He enjoys traveling and music.

Courses Taught (Selected):

• FCS 213: Marriage and Family Relationships
• FCS 570: Research Methods

Ryan J. Kelly earned a PhD in Human Development and Family Studies from Auburn University. His research has focused on the influence that family (e.g., marital and parent-child aggression, parental alcohol use, parental psychopathology) and romantic relationship risk (e.g., dating violence) has on youth health and development over time with a specific focus on sleep. A second line of work has focused on health disparities and understanding the extent to which the negative consequences of risk exposure varies by ethnicity and socioeconomic status. His research is multidisciplinary in nature and has drawn from disciplines including child development, family studies, pediatric sleep medicine, and health psychology.

Ryan enjoys traveling and spending time with his wife, Jessica and their two boys. He also enjoys all that the University of New Mexico has to offer and can often be found at Lobo sporting events.

Courses Taught:

• Family Resource Management
• Ecological Aspects of Family Housing

I am interested in mental health clinicians with a personal history of trauma and how this history impacts their experience with compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction. Additionally, in my work as a Marriage and Family Therapist, I am interested in trauma-informed care and specifically, with trauma-informed parenting education, including the impact trauma has on parenting practices. Aging and Adulthood

Courses Taught (Selected):

• FCS 402

Jen’s research examines schools’ perceptions of multilingual families and how these perceptions influence multilingual teaching and in/formal outreach. Examining conventional practices regarding how schools work with families provides opportunity to consider the degree to which these efforts are upholding equity (or not). Her second strand research addresses how pre-service and in-service teachers learn about family-school relations through various stages of teacher education, advocating for culturally sustaining approaches that understand families through an asset-based lens and embrace their community cultural wealth.

Jen is an avid practitioner of yoga and loves to travel. She enjoys live music and has never met a cat she didn’t adore.

Courses Taught (Selected):

• FCS 313: Family Theories
• FCS 484: Sociocultural Context of Families

Broadly, my research focuses on how family and cultural processes influence prosocial and moral development in ethnic minority children and adolescents. My work examines the generalizability of traditional models of prosocial and moral behaviors across different cultures and considers mothers, fathers, and siblings as socialization agents of youth’s prosocial behaviors. In addition, I explore how cultural values are transmitted from one generation to the next and the role of cultural mechanisms in positive youth development.

In my free time, I enjoy going to baseball games, spending time with family and friends, and exploring local coffee shops and breweries.