Fathers & Families study team

Dr. Chavarro is the Principal Investigator of GUTS and Nurses’ Health Study 3 (NHS3) and Co-Investigator of the Fathers & Families Substudy. He is Associate Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on understanding how nutritional, metabolic, and lifestyle factors impact human reproduction, and how reproductive events and milestones impact other aspects of health throughout the life course and across generations.

Dr. Coley is Co-Investigator of the Fathers & Families Substudy. She is a Professor and Department Chair in the Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology Department at Boston College. She is also editor of the Child Evidence Brief series, which translates research to inform federal policy. As a developmental psychologist, Dr. Coley has spent her career understanding how families can best support their children’s healthy development, and how schools, communities, and government programs facilitate or constrain parents’ efforts. Her research focuses particularly on delineating how economic and social inequality affects children and families. In this work, she seeks to identify and test policies and programs that successfully counteract inequities and allow all children and families to thrive.

Rebekah has two young adult daughters and has been exceedingly grateful to have raised her children in partnership with an exceptionally involved and fantastic father.

Dr. Davison is Principal Investigator of the Fathers & Families Substudy. She is the Donahue and DiFelice Endowed Chair and Associate Dean for Research in the School of Social Work at Boston College, where she leads a research program focused on parenting and child health. Dr. Davison is also an adjunct Professor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Dr. Davison’s research primarily focuses on family and community factors that influence children’s lifestyle behaviors (diet, physical activity, sleep, screen-based activities) and risk of obesity. She has investigated parenting strategies that promote active lifestyles in children, and developed family-centered interventions for promoting children’s health. A primary emphasis of her work is the need to consider the family unit as a whole and address factors beyond the family (e.g., community resources, media factors) that impact on family interactions around healthy lifestyles.

Kirsten is the parent of two teenage boys who have taught her that every child has a unique temperament, which can lead to very different parenting approaches.

Dr. Haines is Principal Investigator of the Fathers & Families Substudy. She is an Associate Professor of Applied Nutrition at the University of Guelph in Canada. Prior to her appointment at University of Guelph, Dr. Haines was a faculty member at the Obesity Prevention Program in the Department of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She has been a GUTS investigator for over 10 years. Her research is focused on identifying family-level factors that influence children’s health behaviors and then using that information to design and test family-based health promotion interventions.

Jess is the parent of two pre-teens. Her main parenting regret is how much she has worried about her kids throughout their lives.

Dr. Haneuse is Co-Investigator of the Fathers & Families Substudy. He is a Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is also Health Sciences and Technology Affiliated Faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and member of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology faculty at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Haneuse’s research focuses on the development of new statistical and epidemiologic tools for the design and analysis of complex observational studies. He is involved as a collaborator in a wide range of clinical and public health domains, including obesity, perinatal epidemiology, and pediatric epidemiology.

As a stepfather of a 12-year-old and father of a 6-year-old, Sebastien is constantly amazed at how quickly his children are growing up and how important it is to balance thinking about their future and staying in the moment.

Dr. McBride is Co-Investigator of the Fathers & Families Substudy. He is a professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign (UIUC), and in the Division of Nutritional Sciences. He also serves as Director of the Child Development Laboratory, a program designed to facilitate teaching and research initiatives of faculty and students on the UIUC campus.

The primary focus of Dr. McBride’s research program has been on the antecedents and consequences of father involvement. This work has focused on fathers/father figures of children with and without disabilities, and has included both basic and applied components.

Brent is the father of a 23-year-old emerging adult who has continued to remind her father throughout her life to be open for growth as a parent.