Michaela Schenkelberg, associate professor of health and kinesiology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, is collaborating with MAP Academy personnel to make it easier to evaluate young children’s gross motor skills — the basic, whole-body movements that lay the foundation for lifelong physical activity.
For many, work-related stress is often seen as part of the job, with emotional exhaustion, burnout and turnover reported across nearly every industry in the U.S.
For the early childhood workforce, however, such stress can reach beyond teachers’ well-being and into the classroom. Research shows that when educators are navigating ongoing stress and emotional exhaustion, it can affect how they respond to children and families, shaping the tone of interactions and the overall learning environment.
Family dynamics among caregivers tend to be complicated. They can become even more complex when grandparents take on co-parenting roles.
Weiman Xu, postdoctoral fellow at the Nebraska Academy for Methodology, Analytics and Psychometrics (MAP Academy), recently explored the association between intergenerational co-parenting and children’s social-emotional development. Funded by a graduate scholars grant from the Buffett Early Childhood Institute, Xu investigated the role grandparents play in raising children and how co-parenting between grandparents and parents relate to children’s well-being.
Sungeun Kang, assistant professor of school psychology, is the 2026 recipient of the CYFS Signature Research Impact Program (SRIP) award, which was developed to address critical issues affecting Nebraska’s children, youth, families, schools and communities.
Creating connections among early childhood research, practice and policy — and how each can enhance the lives of young children and their families — provided the central theme of the 2026 CYFS Early Childhood Research Summit .
Almost 200 attendees, including researchers from across the University of Nebraska system, practitioners, administrators, community partners and policymakers, gathered April 28 at Nebraska Innovation Campus for the daylong, seventh biennial summit, which highlighted the latest research to advance early childhood education and development, and implications for practice and policy.
Pavel Chernyavskiy, assistant professor in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of Virginia, led the spring presentation of the 2025-26 Methodology Applications Series April 24 at the Nebraska Union.
Video is now available of Chernyavskiy’s presentation, titled, “Everything is Important and Everything is Correlated: Challenges and Opportunities of Working in Correlated Data.”
CYFS is seeking its next director — an accomplished research leader who can build on a strong foundation of partnerships, signature programs and real-world impact.
The search is being led by a faculty search committee, with support from the College of Education and Human Sciences (CEHS) at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
A Swiss researcher is spending the spring in Lincoln to learn more about an innovative program designed to improve children’s academic, social and behavioral outcomes while building stronger, more effective relationships among parents and teachers.
Caroline Villiger, professor and head of the “Family–Education–School” research program at the University of Teacher Education in Bern, Switzerland, arrived in Lincoln April 14 to study the Teachers and Parents as Partners (TAPP) program, which was developed at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and supports school-age children who are struggling with a variety of behavioral, social and academic challenges.
