Co-Investigators:

Gretchen Miller Wrobel, Ph.D, is currently Professor of Psychology at Bethel University in St. Paul, MN. and is the 2005 recipient of the Faculty Excellence Award in Scholarship. Dr. Wrobel has been affiliated with MTARP for over 15 years. She has published on issues related to children's adjustment to adoption and adoptive family communication, and has been a presenter on those issues at national and international professional conferences. Her research interests include child and adolescent adjustment to adoption, birth and adoptive family connections, and communication about adoption in families. Dr. Wrobel received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in the department of educational psychology and her B.A. from Hamline University in psychology. Dr. Wrobel serves as editor of the journal Adoption Quarterly.

Susan Ayers-Lopez, M.Ed., received a bachelor’s degree in Education and a master’s degree in Educational Psychology from The University of Texas at Austin.  She has been a project manager at The University of Texas at Austin for 25 years.  She has supervised graduate research assistants and managed research projects with many different areas of focus, with the majority of her work in the area of adoption.  She has co-authored 11 articles and 4 book chapters and has been a co-presenter at numerous professional conferences.  She currently holds a half-time position as project manager for Ruth McRoy’s adoption projects and a half-time position with the Protective Services Training Institute, where assists with training evaluation and researches and writes for the Protection Connection, web-based training modules for The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.  

Martha Rueter, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota.  She received her Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies in 1991 at Iowa State University.  Her research interests include family policy, rural families, parent-adolescent problem solving, alcohol use in adolescence, and sibling interaction and behavior.  She brings advanced statistical expertise to the MTARP project and serves as the statistical and methodological consultant.

Project Manager:

Sarah Friese (scfriese@umn.edu) received her BS in Family Social Science in 2001 from the University of Minnesota. She went on to receive a Master of Public Policy with a focus on health and youth policy, also from the University of Minnesota. Prior to beginning graduate school, Sarah worked in social services with people with developmental disabilities and for Hennepin County child protection. Her research experience includes performing a study of funding trends for community organizations in the Twin Cities and an examination of county-level child support outcomes, both for the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs. She also worked for several years at a Minneapolis non-profit providing research and evaluation services to non-profit and government groups.

Graduate Students:

Heather Haberman (habe0076@umn.edu) is most recently from Bozeman, MT.  She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Family Studies from Montana State University in 2000. Heather was accepted directly into the doctoral program at the University of Minnesota. In 2003 she received her Master’s degree in Family Social Science from the University of Minnesota. Projects she has been involved in here at the University of Minnesota include the Family Business Project, Minnesota/Texas Adoption Research Project (MTARP), National Endowment of Financial Education High School Financial Planning Project, Parenting Together Project, and Long-Term Care Project.  Heather is currently overseeing the implementation and collection of online data for the Minnesota/Texas Adoption Research Project.  Heather’s research focuses on the Internet as a research method and the culture of technology in relation to couples and family.

Bibiana Koh (bdkoh@umn.edu) received a Master of Social Work degree from Smith College School of Social Work.  Bibiana has done both clinical and administrative work in regular and special education schools, community and hospital-based outpatient clinics, and non-profit agencies.  Her clinical work has focused on children, youth, and families.  Bibiana also has two other master’s degrees.  One is in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University; the other is in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) from the School for International Training.  Bibiana has lived and taught overseas in China, Korea, Morocco, and Laos.  Bibiana’s research interests include issues of ethnicity, culture, and identity in adolescents and families.   Bibiana is also interested in bidirectionality in relation to development, identity, and narratives in families.

Jane Newell (newe0016@umn.edu) received a B.S. in Social Work with a minor in ECFE (Parent Education) from St. Cloud State University . She has worked with families considered to be "at risk" in society for the last fifteen years. Her early work focused on child abuse prevention, early childhood family education, and early intervention for children's mental health by providing education and support for families. In the last few years her work with families who adopt older children from foster care has prompted her return to graduate school. Jane is interested in adoptive family formation of older youth (13 -17), as well as the process of emancipation for foster youth who age out of foster care.

Di Samek (di.samek@gmail.com) received a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota and is currently working on her M.A. in Family Social Science at the same University. Her current research interests include identity and close relationships. Specifically, she is interested in studying the stability and fluctuations of multiple aspects of identity due to interpersonal relationships. Her other research interests include adolescence, substance abuse and sibling relationships. She is currently working on coding and analyzing adoptive identity for the MTARP project, and also holds a position at the MN Center for Twin and Family Research, which also researches adoption.

Kristin Schneider (kschneid@umn.edu) was born in Minnesota, but has also lived in Texas and Washington State.  She received her Bachelor’s here in Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota.  She is now pursuing her Masters and PhD.  Kristin is  a research assistant on the MTARP project and her research interests include family policy, homelessness, low-income housing, domestic violence, sexual assault, substance abuse, and non-traditional families.

Brooke A. Skinner-Drawz (bskinner@umn.edu) received her B.A. from Macalester College in psychology and communication studies. She returns to Minnesota from North Carolina after receiving her MSW with a concentration in Direct Practice with Families and Children from UNC—Chapel Hill; she is a LGSW. Brooke is currently pursuing her PhD with a Marriage and Family Therapy specialization. Her previous research experience includes work with the Minnesota Twin and Family Study/SIBS Study and the National Study of Child and Adolescent Well-being. Brooke is a research assistant for MTARP working primarily in the area of data collection.

Seohee Son (sson@umn.edu) received her Bachelor’s degree in Family and Child Welfare and her Master’s degree in Family Resource Management from Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul, Korea. Seohee is now pursuing a Ph. D in Family Social Science. Her research interests include work-family balance, families in poverty, social support, and elderly parent - adult child relationships.

Lynn Von Korff (vonko002@umn.edu) is the data analyst for the Minnesota Texas Adoption Research Project. She received a BFA from Boston University School of Fine Arts and an MBA from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. She is pursuing a PhD in Family Social Science focusing on contact in adoption, methodology, and interpersonal relationships research. Prior to pursuing her PhD, she designed and implemented community grant programs, taught financial management, and served as manager in several Minnesota nonprofit human service and artsorganizations.