Shelby Peterson
I graduated from The University of Nevada, Reno and received my bachelor’s degree in HDFS and a minor in Psychology. After graduation, I moved to beautiful British Columbia, Canada for an 18-month service mission where I was able to interact with a variety of people and cultures. I am a second-year graduate student in the HDFS MS program at The University of Nevada, Reno where I’ve had the opportunity to teach and assist in courses and participate in research to prepare me for my future career. After I graduate, I hope to become a Certified Family Life Educator and work in higher education so I can continue teaching and doing research on what the best developmental practices are for individuals and families. |
Elizabeth Miller
Elizabeth's research interests include marriage, parenting, and Bowen's Family Systems Theory. As a wife and mother, these topics are especially relevant to her, and she enjoys applying what she learns about these topics to her own life. She currently writes for the parenting website genes2teens.com. She enjoys writing in this capacity and looks forward to becoming a Certified Family Life Educator upon earning her master's degree in HDFS. In her future professional path, she plans to focus her family life education efforts on motherhood and marriage as informed by Bowen's theory and research-based practice. |
Rose Steffen
I am a second year graduate student at UNR in the HDFS MS program. I graduated in the HDFS program with my Bachelor’s degree in Spring of 2016. I jumped right into my Master’s program the next semester. I started out in Education as a degree, but switched to HDFS while I was in my first HDFS 201 course. I have a passion for working with families, helping where help is needed, and learning as much as I can along the way. This research has a special interest for me because I am interested in becoming a home visitor and working with families of all kinds one day and this is only the beginning. I hope to learn from home visitors and families that they work with through this research and apply it to my future endeavors. |
Maria Reyes-Vargas
I completed my undergraduate degree from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2015 with a BS in HDFS, and minor in Psychology. Ever since my first job in high school, I have oriented my work to be with students and families. In my 10 plus years of experience, I have worked with pregnant women, children ages 0-17, and parents. My true passion lies in working with families of young children. A few months after graduation, I became a home visitor for UNR-Early Head Start. Being a home visitor has helped me grow as a professional and as a person. As a home visitor, I bring parenting education and support to families who are expecting or have children younger than age 3. Through this home visiting work, I have had the privilege to be part of the first home visiting program in Nevada to offer home visiting services to incarcerated pregnant women. Working with women at the Washoe County Jail has been a tremendous learning experience. I discovered that there is so much more to learn than simply providing home visits. With that curiosity and support from colleagues and professors, I have turned my jail home visiting experience into the research focus for my thesis. I believe research will provide insight as to how we can continue to strengthen families in our community. I am excited to see what path home visiting within the jail takes me and how my research will impact that experience. |