People

Jacquelynne S. Eccles

Professor Eccles has served on the faculty at Smith College, the University of Colorado, and the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on topics ranging from gender-role socialization and gendered life choices, classroom influences on motivation to social development in the family, school, peer and wider cultural contexts. She served as chair of the Combined Program in Education and Psychology repeatedly over the last 30 years and was the assistant vice president for research at the University of Michigan from 1987 to 1989. She is past president of the Society for Research on Adolescence and of Division 35 (the Psychology of Women) of the American Psychological Association (APA), and past chair of the National Academy of Science/National Research Council (NAS/NRC) Committee on After-School Programs for Youth. She is a member of the National Academy of Education and now serves on its governing board. Most recently, she helped create and then direct two international graduate and postdoctoral training programs in developmental sciences.  Dr. Eccles’s  awards include: the Spencer Foundation Fellowship for Outstanding Young Scholar in Educational Research, the Sarah Goddard Power Award for Outstanding Service from the University of Michigan, the American Psychological Society (APS) Cattell Fellows Award for Outstanding Applied Work in Psychology, the Society for the Study of Social Issue’s Kurt Lewin Award for outstanding research, the Life-Time Research Award from SRA, Division 15 (Educational Psychology) of the APA and the Society for Research on Human Development, and the Mentor's Award from Division 7 (Developmental Psychology) of APA.

Professor Eccles earned her PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1974.

Click here for more information about Professor Eccles’s research.

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Deborah Keller-Cohen

Prof. Keller-Cohen has conducted research on a wide range of areas using ethnographic, experimental, archival, and textual methodologies. Her work on literacy has examined both contemporary and historical American contexts with a focus on everyday understandings of reading, writing, and speaking. She has examined literate practices in a credit union, how people understand and use the phone bill, and how colonial Americans conceived of literacy. As a discourse analyst, her work has explored how people tell their life stories with particular emphasis on individual and gender-related differences. Her newest line of work concerns language and aging with a focus on the oldest old, those over 85. In particular, she is examining the relationship between the maintenance of language skills and the nature of one's social environment and how gender, education, and cognition affect that relationship.

Prof. Keller-Cohen earned her PhD in linguistics from the State University of New York at Buffalo (1974).

Click here for more on Prof. Keller-Cohen’s research.

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Hannah Rosen

Dr. Rosen is a historian whose research and teaching have focused on the social and cultural history of the 19th-century United States, and particularly on the intersection of race and gender in histories of slavery, emancipation, and postemancipation society. She is the author of Terror in the Heart of Freedom: Citizenship, Sexual Violence, and the Meaning of Race in the Postemancipation South (University of North Carolina Press, 2009, recipient of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians First Book Prize, the Avery O. Craven Award from the Organization of American Historians, and the Willie Lee Rose Prize from the Southern Association of Women’s Historians).

Her current research treats African American experiences surrounding death and mourning during and after the Civil War and the increasing segregation of southern cemeteries in the postemancipation period. In this project, she also explores historical memory and commemoration through black women’s efforts to reclaim and restore African American burial sites.

Dr. Rosen earned her PhD in history from the University of Chicago (1999).

Click here to learn more about Dr. Rosen’s research.

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Julia Seng

Julia Seng studies the effects of abuse-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on women’s health and childbearing outcomes. She and her collaborators have been studying genetic, neuroendocrine, psychological, and social predictors of obstetric, mental health, and attachment outcomes of first-time pregnant women who have PTSD. They also focus on the women’s experiences, using narrative methods. Using action research, they have worked with "survivor moms" to develop a PTSD-specific psycho-education program for the childbearing year.

Dr. Seng is the co-author with Mickey Sperlich of Survivor Moms: Women’s Stories of Birthing, Mothering and Healing after Sexual Abuse (Motherbaby Press, 2008), which was honored as the 2009 Book of the Year by the American College of Nurse Midwives. Currently Dr. Seng is studying the hormone oxytocin as a plausible biological mechanism for some of the psychological and physical symptoms of Complex PTSD among women. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in outcomes research at the University of Iowa.

Professor Seng, CNM, FAAN, earned her PhD in nursing (women’s health) from the University of Michigan (1999).

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Terrence W. Crimes

Terrence Crimes is responsible for managing department operations, including supervision of the department staff; faculty appointments and concerns; financial analyses; budget management; and computer purchases, equipment, and support. He manages the human resources function at IRWG and serves as Lane Hall building coordinator, responsible for ensuring the overall upkeep and maintenance of the building. He serves as liaison between the Institute, the Office of the Vice President for Research, and the University at large.

Terrence earned his BA in public affairs at Wayne State University.

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Tammy Culler

tammy@umich.edu
Desktop Support Specialist

1136 Lane Hall
734-764-9537

Tammy fulfills all of Lane Hall's technology needs.

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Terri D. Eagen-Torkko

Terri is responsible for IRWG's public events—the brown-bag discussions, conferences, and lectures that IRWG hosts each academic year. Before joining the IRWG staff in 2005, she worked as an editor and communications expert in the U-M schools of Social Work and Education.

Terri earned her undergraduate degree at the University of St. Catherine (1993).

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Brandy M. Johnson

Brandy Johnson provides administrative and general office support and assists with facilities-related functions for IRWG. Before joining IRWG, Brandy worked for four years as the main receptionist at the Arbor Lakes location of the university's department of Medical Center Information Technology.

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Beverly Kissel

bkissel@umich.edu
Administrative Specialist

1136A Lane Hall
734-764-9513

Bev is responsible for monthly reconciliation and day-to-day monitoring of the department's operation funds. She also serves as the department HRMS Unit Liaison and provides complex administrative support for the department manager, including assistance with facilities management.

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Lisa D. Parker

Lisa handles the pre- and post-award administration of federal and nonfederal research proposals and awarded projects.  She works with personnel in the Division of Research Development and Administration (DRDA) and Financial Operations to ensure adherence to sponsor and University guidelines.  Lisa joined the staff at IRWG in October, 2000.

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Nicole Perry

msnicole@umich.edu
Secretary Senior

1136 Lane Hall
734-764-9537

Nicole provides administrative support to IRWG's director and general secretarial duties for the IRWG office.

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Debra M. Schwartz

Debra is responsible for communications, public relations, and development activities at IRWG. She has more than 30 years of communications and administrative experience at nonprofits and universities and she is the author of numerous articles about university life. One of Debra's first jobs was as a slide projectionist for the U-M History of Art Department, a career path that has since disappeared along with most of the Chinese she learned on her way to her master's degree.

Debra earned an AB in the history of art (1975) and an AM in Asian studies (1980), both from the University of Michigan.

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