FSoS professor honored twice during national conference

Chalandra Bryant, professor and Pauline Boss Faculty Fellow in Ambiguous Loss in the Department of Family Social Science, was honored with two awards during the National Conference on Family Relations’ Annual Conference in Minneapolis.

Bryant was presented with the Felix Berardo Mentoring Award and the Inclusion and Diversity Committee’s 2022 Social Justice Award. Committees of distinguished Family Science professionals selected her to receive these awards to recognize her contributions to Family Science, outstanding leadership, scholarship and service.

Dr. Bryant joined the UMN faculty in 2020 and currently serves as the FSoS Director of Research. She came to Minnesota from the University of Georgia (UGA) where she was a professor of Human Development and Family Science and taught courses in family development, intimate relationships, and family theories.

She also previously served at the National Science Foundation as a program director in the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences.

Her research focuses on stress;  the developmental roots and course of close relationships; the ability to sustain close intimate ties; and the manner in which social, familial, economic, and psychosocial factors are linked to marital outcomes. A National Institutes of Health-funded project, A Study of African American Marriage and Health, examined factors contributing to the marital and health outcomes of newly married African American couples as well as the interrelationship between marriage and health. 

She has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Family Theory and Review and the Journal of Marriage and Family. She is a co-author of the book, Family Stress Management: A Contextual Approach, Third Edition published by Sage.

She has also been honored with the National Council on Family Relation’s (NCFR) Reuben Hill Research and Theory Award and the Outstanding Young Professional Award from the Texas Exes Alumni Association of the University of Texas. In addition, the International Association for Relationship Research presented her with the New Contributions Award (honoring significant contributions to personal relationships research).

She has also served on the faculty at Iowa State University and The Pennsylvania State University. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Texas and completed a two-year National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) post-doctoral fellowship.