About the Authors

Jacquelyn J. Benson is an Assistant Professor and State Extension Specialist in Gerontology at the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO. As a family gerontologist, Dr. Benson’s program of research has a translation focus aimed at enhancing the lives of older adults and their families. Dr. Benson studies the reciprocal associations between older adults’ close relationships and their well-being, and translates this research-based knowledge into interventions, programs, and other strategies for healthy aging. Her most recent work focuses on studying family caregiving relationships and developing strategies that support family caregivers in balancing the demands of work, life, and caregiving responsibilities. Dr. Benson completed her doctorate in human development and family studies with special emphasis in gerontology from the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO. Prior to returning to Mizzou as a faculty member, Dr. Benson was a Senior Research Associate at Mather LifeWays Institute on Aging in Evanston, Illinois.

Bonnie Braun has held administrative and academic appointments in departments of family science and Cooperative Extension at four land-grant universities and the USDA. She served as the first Director and Endowed Chair of the Horowitz Center for Health Literacy at the University of Maryland, School of Public Health. Currently, she is a University of Maryland Extension Consultant leading the award-winning Smart Choice Health Insurance ^© curriculum to teach consumers how to make health insurance purchase decisions that meet their family financial and health needs. She is serving on the national Extension Committee on Policy’s Health Task Force which just released Cooperative Extensionߣs National Framework for Health and Wellness. Dr. Braun facilitates family-focused, community-based, research and outreach education to improve the health and health insurance literacy of families and consumers, professionals and public policy makers. She is author of over 100 articles on a variety of family well-being topics. She served as President of the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences.

Belinda Carrillo is an undergraduate at Whittier College who began working with the research team in the summer of 2013 and now holds the position of research associate. She recently co-presented research at the 94th annual Western Psychological Association Conference and is looking forward to continuing research on friends with benefits relationships with the current research team. Belinda is also in the process of applying for a Fulbright grant in order to travel to New Zealand where she hopes to investigate how being targeted by negative gender stereotypes may shape behavior. She specifically is interested in understanding the unique ways that mothers of different ethnicities may be affected by stereotyping and the distinct impact this may have on their parenting styles. Her passion for research began during a summer internship program in which she held a research assistant position at the University of California, San Francisco with the Emotion, Health, and Psychophysiology Lab. Belinda intends to continue research regarding women’s health in the future and will apply for graduate school programs where she can specialize in this topic.

Marilyn J. Coleman is a Curators’ Professor Emerita of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Missouri. She also is an affiliate of Women’s and Gender Studies, and a Fellow of the Center for Excellence on Aging and a Fellow of the Center for Family Research and Policy. Her research interests are primarily post-divorce relationships, especially remarriage and stepfamily relationships. She has co-authored 8 books, and has published well over 175 journal articles and book chapters, most with her colleague and husband, Dr. Lawrence Ganong. She was the first female editor of the leading family journal in the world, Journal of Marriage and Family, from 1992 to 1996, and has been either an Associate Editor or on the Editorial Board of six additional journals. Dr. Coleman has won numerous national and campus awards for teaching, research, and service including being given the First Annual MU Graduate Faculty Mentor Award, MU Alumnae Anniversary Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Education of Women, the UMC Faculty/Alumni Award, Lifetime Contribution Award by the Stepfamily Association of America, The Kansas State University Distinguished Service Award, Fellow of the National Council on Family Relations, and the NCFR Felix Berardo Mentoring Award. She and Dr. Ganong have garnered over 4 million dollars in grants.

Tetsushi Fujimoto is a Professor of Sociology at Graduate School of Policy and Management, and the deputy director of the Institute for Technology, Enterprise and Competitiveness, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. His research interests include the intersection of gender, work, and family. He is currently investigating the career development processes of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in Japan. Another project focuses on the gender differences in imposter phenomenon among young Japanese scientists in fixed-term appointment.

Lawrence H. Ganong, Ph.D., is a Professor and Co-Chair of Human Development and Family Studies and a Professor in the Sinclair School of Nursing at the University of Missouri. He has co-authored over 200 articles and book chapters as well as 7 books, including Stepfamily Relationships (2004) and Handbook of Contemporary Families (2004) with Marilyn Coleman and Family Life in 20th Century America (2007) with Coleman and Kelly Warzinik. His primary research program has focused on post-divorce families, especially stepfamilies, and he is particularly interested in understanding how family members develop satisfying and effective relationships after structural transitions. His research has been funded by the National Institute of Aging, the National Institute for Nursing Research, USDA, Missouri Department of Social Services, and the Kauffmann Foundation. He is a Fellow in the National Council on Family Relations and the MU Center for Excellence on Aging. Ganong earned a BA from Washburn University, masters’ degrees from Kansas State University and the University of Missouri, and a Ph.D. from the University of Missouri. He has been on the faculty at MU for 35 years.

Amanda C. Ginter is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Family Studies and Community Development at Towson University. Dr. Ginter received a Ph.D. in the Department of Family Science in the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland, College Park. Prior to attending the University of Maryland, she conducted research on breast cancer and obstetric issues in a variety of academic and hospital settings. Following completion of her doctorate, Dr. Ginter served as the the data analyst for the Smart Choice Health Insurance ^© initiative. Dr. Ginter’s research interests include coping methods for breast cancer patients and their families, HPV vaccine usage, health literacy, and bioethics.

Darbi J. Haynes-Lawrence, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor at Western Kentucky University in the Child and Family Studies unit. Dr. Darbi, as she is known to her students, has Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and uses her experiences as a researcher and a person living with MS to educate as many people as possible about the disease. Her research passion lays with families who have MS and how we can support them and their children best. As well as conducting, publishing and presenting research, Dr. Darbi is passionate about teaching. Her favorite course topics are parenting strategies, child and family stress, and behavior management. Dr. Darbi and her husband have one child, Samantha Jo.

Anita Hoag received her M.A. in Communication from the University of Louisville and B.S. in Marketing from Northeastern University. She is particularly interested in family communication, adolescent friendships, and friendships between later-life men. Her work has been presented at annual meetings of the Kentucky Communication Association and the Southern States Communication Association. She is also one of the co-authors for a book chapter that appears in Communication for Families in Crisis: Theories, Research, Strategies. Anita is currently working as a freelance writer, and has just finished writing her first novel for the middle-grade reader.

Martijn J. A. Hogerbrugge is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Interuniversity Centre for Social Science Theory and Methodology (ICS) at Utrecht University. His dissertation is about the bidirectional influences of [extended] family relations and negative events in the lives of individual family members. His research interests include solidarity, conflict, and ambivalence in intergenerational relations, life course research, and longitudinal and multi-level research methods.

SunWoo Kang, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in Counseling and Human Development at South Dakota State University. Her scholarship focuses on understanding the psychosocial factors and processes (e.g., family caregiving relationships, marital quality, spirituality/religiosity, gender) that contribute to optimal physical health and psychological well-being across the lifespan. Her work draws on a life course perspective, a biopsychosocial model, and a resilience framework in conceptualizing individual health and well-being as a dynamic developmental process over time. Her recent publications and research have explored how caregiving for a parent is linked to biomarkers of health, and how the health effects of caregiving for a parent are moderated by gender and marital quality.

Aafke E. Komter (Professor Emeritus) is currently affiliated to the Department of Sociology of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands, as a guest-researcher. From 2000 to 2012 she was the Head of the Department of Social Science at University College Utrecht, the Honor’s College of Utrecht University, where she was occupying the chair ‘Comparative Studies of Social Solidarity’. She has written numerous books and articles on reciprocity, gift exchange, and (family) solidarity.

Andrew S. London is Professor of Sociology, Faculty Associate in the Aging Studies Institute, Senior Research Affiliate in the Center for Policy Research, and Senior Fellow in the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University. From 2006 to 2012, he was also a founding Co-Director of SU’s LGBT Studies Program. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology and Demography from the University of Pennsylvania in 1993. His research focuses on the health, care, and well-being of stigmatized and vulnerable populations. He has more than 60 publications on: the health of and health services utilization by persons living with HIV/AIDS; the integration of informal and formal HIV/AIDS care; carework and formal childcare for low-income and vulnerable children and youth; the consequences of welfare reform for poor women and their children; the life course consequences of incarceration; and historical racial differences in remarriage, fertility, and living arrangements. His current research (with Janet Wilmoth and other collaborators) focuses on how military service affects health, economic well-being, social program participation, sexual behavior, and marriage and family across the life course. His research has been published in such journals as: AIDS Care; American Journal of Public Health; Archives of General Psychiatry; Demography; Family Relations; Gender & Society; Journal of Family Issues; Journal of General Internal Medicine; Journal of Gerontology—Social Sciences; Journal of Health Economics; Journal of Marriage and Family; Journal of Poverty; Journal of Research on Adolescence; Journal of Studies on Alcohol; Population Research and Policy Review; Research on Aging; Social Science History; Social Science and Medicine; Social Service Review; Substance Use and Misuse; Sociological Inquiry; and The Future of Children. He also edited (with Francesca Cancian, Demie Kurz, Rebecca Reviere, and Mary Tuominen) Child Care and Inequality: Re-Thinking Carework for Children and Youth and (with Janet Wilmoth) Life-Course Perspectives on Military Service.

Nadine F. Marks, Ph.D., is a Professor Emerita of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research has been supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the National Institute on Aging, and the National Institute on Mental Health. Guided by a life course and biopsychosocial perspective her research and publications use data from large longitudinal population studies to examine psychosocial factors linked to mental and physical health in adulthood and aging, including socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, gender, caregiving for family members and friends, marital status continuity and change, marital quality, filial bereavement, giving and receiving social support, work/family spillover, problems in the lives of adult children, informal volunteering, and violence experienced in childhood.

Tsuyoshi Oohira is an administrative staff member in the Corporate Development Department at Omichi-kai Medical Corporation and a doctoral candidate at the Graduate School of Policy and Management, Doshisha University. His research interests include the relationship between human resource management and organizational communication in human service organizations. He received his master’s degree in policy studies from Doshisha University.

Jennifer S. Reinke is an Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. Prior to UW-Stout, Dr. Reinke was a Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) Fellow both at the University of Minnesota and JFK Partners (University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus). She earned the Ph.D. in Family Social Science from the University of Minnesota in 2013. Dr. Reinke is a Licensed Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified Family Life Educator; and a 2014–2016 Nakatani Center for Teaching and Learning Teaching Champion. Along with the responsibilities of teaching, Dr. Reinke is active in the fields of intellectual and developmental disabilities and teaching and learning in family science presenting at national conferences and publishing in scholarly and popular sources.

Irma M. Rivera is currently an undergraduate at Whittier College and will receive her B.A. in Psychology and Spanish in May of 2014. She began to investigate friends with benefits relationships with the research team in June of 2012, and was able to co-present the findings at the annual Adolescent Sexuality Conference in Seaside, Oregon in April of 2013. She is also currently working with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, HIV and STD Department assisting in data collection and analysis from patients within the Los Angeles County. Throughout her research involvement and work, she wishes to see how media and culture affect a person’s desire to be sexually active, and the implications it can have on their life and on their health. She plans to attend graduate school in Counseling Psychology hoping to one day work with abused children and assist in their disclosure and post-abuse life.

Christina L. Scott earned her B.S. at Occidental College in 1996 as a double major in Psychology and Theater and has continued her interdisciplinary love of learning ever since. Christina attended Kansas State University for graduate school and received her M.S. in 1998 and her Ph.D. in 2000. Developing her teaching experience through appointments with several colleges and universities across the nation, including Pepperdine University, Loyola University of Chicago, Chico State, Tennessee State University and St. Mary’s College of California, has allowed her to bring the very best of her dynamic teaching style to Whittier College. Christina’s of research focuses primarily on women’s sexual arousal and behavior. Each year she interviews and selects two or three undergraduate students to serve as research assistants for the academic year. Starting with “Research Boot Camp” in late summer, the undergraduate research assistants are involved in all aspects of academic research from the very earliest planning sessions and IRB submission, to data collection and analysis. Each year her research team presents the current research project at a regional or national psychological conference marking the completion of a full year of intensive research experience. Exemplary research assistants are invited to continue for a second year as research associates and assume greater responsibility and leadership roles. Christina has published in a wide range of books and journals and she continues to speak nationally and internationally about her sexuality research. Beyond the Whittier College community, Christina is passionate about sex education and volunteers to speak with local high schools and LGBTQ youth groups about healthy relationships and safe sexual practices. She has enjoyed teaching summer courses in psychology in Shanghai, China for the last two years and looks forward to additional international teaching and research opportunities in the future.

Sayaka K. Shinohara received her Ph.D. from Bowling Green State University, OH. She is currently Joint Researcher at the Institute for Technology, Enterprise, and Competitiveness, Doshisha University, Japan. She is also Researcher at the Hyogo Work and Life Center. Her research interests include women’s career development and family formation. She is currently working on the positive interactions between experiences in non-work domains and work performance particularly among women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in Japan.

Catherine A. Solheim is an Associate Professor in Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota. Her research scholarship centers on family resource management and the ways that culture and socio-economic status impact the diverse ways families make decisions about and manage scarce resources. She has conducted research on transnational Mexican-Minnesota family resource and relationship decisions, values and financial practices of two-generation Hmong immigrant families in Minnesota, and asset development in limited-resource families through matched savings programs. Her current research focuses on mental health and economic transitions of newly arriving refugee families and involves faculty colleagues, graduate students, and community partners.

Jessica Streeter is a Sociology Ph.D. Candidate at Rutgers University. Her research primarily explores how individuals understand health and illness, and how lenses like race, class, and gender color those perceptions. She currently resides in Philadelphia with her fiancee and a small troupe of fur-babies.

Adam R. West is an Assistant Professor of Family Studies at Western Kentucky University. He is also a Certified Family Life Educator and licensed Master of Social Work. His primary research interests center on the development of nonmarital and marital romantic unions. Recent work includes the co-development of an educational website aimed at promoting healthy decisions about relationship commitment. He also examines the use of technology in the development and maintenance of family relationships. He recently conducted a study with unmarried individuals to examine how the use of social networking sites (e.g., Facebook) affects their relationship commitment. Dr. West regularly presents at national conferences and his research has been published in peer-reviewed journals and edited books. As a social worker, he has worked as a family and marriage counselor, personal care counselor, and group facilitator. He has also worked with juvenile probation offices to counsel adolescents and their families. As a family life educator, he regularly gives presentations and workshops in the community on a variety of family topics including, dating and mate selection, parenting strategies, and family financial management. Dr. West and his wife are the parents of five children.

Janet M. Wilmoth received a Ph.D. in Sociology and Demography, with a minor in Gerontology, from the Pennsylvania State University. She is Professor of Sociology, Director of the Aging Studies Institute, Senior Research Affiliate in the Center for Policy Research, and Senior Fellow in the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University. She has over 40 publications on issues related to older adult migration and living arrangements, health status, and financial security. Her current research (with Andrew London) examines how military service shapes various life course outcomes related to marriage and family, economic well-being, health conditions, and disability. Her work has been published in the Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences, The Gerontologist, Research on Aging, Journal of Aging and Health, Population Research and Policy Review, Journal of Marriage and Family, Journal of Family Issues, Journal of Poverty, and Social Service Review. She also edited (with Ken Ferraro) Gerontology: Perspectives and Issues, 4th Edition and (with Andrew London) Life-Course Perspectives on Military Service.