FSoS graduate student hits milestones on the journey to PhD

Umme Kawser, an international student from Bangladesh, has logged a number of  achievements on her way to a PhD in Couple and Family Therapy from the Department  of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota.    

This summer, Kawser achieved the milestone–twice!–of first-author articles accepted for  publication. Both articles will appear in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy  (JMFT) and examine couple and family therapy issues in her home country of  Bangladesh.

Her first was "Data-Driven Insights: A University-Based Family Therapy Clinic Study in  Dhaka, Bangladesh, Using the SCORE-15," co-written with Steven M. Harris, FSoS  professor, Akib Ul Huque, Mehrin Quazi Richi, and Alison Butterfield. Read the full article.  Her second was  "Bangladeshi Couple Therapists’ Perspectives of Divorce Decision-Making," with co- authors Harris, Pauroma Preety Mallick, Michael L. White, and Lexi D. Gramlow. Here's the article.    

Kawser has also been invited by the American Association of Marriage and Family  Therapists (AAMFT) to present her research as part of the JMFT Webinar Series and  share the findings from her study on Bangladeshi couple therapists’ perspectives on  divorce decision-making.   

Also, a research poster co-authored by Kawser, and fellow FSoS graduate students, Soyoul Song, and Haoran Zhou was presented at the Medical Family Therapy  conference co-hosted by FSoS and the AAMFT MedFT Topic of Interest Network in  July.They presented the poster, "Cultural Bridges: Asian Therapists’ Perception of  Cultural Identity and Its Influence on Clinical Practice in the United States."   

Project to launch August 

As part of the AAMFT Leadership Certification Program 2025, Kawser is launching in  August a Community Engagement Project. "Anando Bari: Happy Homes– Relational Mental Health," that aims to address the unmet mental health needs of low-  to middle-income communities in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Through hybrid Emotionally  Focused Therapy (EFT)-based workshops and virtual peer support, the project will  promote attachment security, emotional regulation, and communication skills among  underserved couples. In collaboration with the University of Dhaka and the Innovation  for Wellbeing Foundation, the project also includes capacity-building efforts to train local  facilitators and sustain community-led relational health efforts beyond the initial program  period.