Rebekah Levine Coley, Ph.D. is Professor and Florencia and Marc Gabelli Family Faculty Fellow of Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology and Director of the Institute of Early Childhood Policy at Boston College.  She received her doctorate in Developmental Psychology from the University of Michigan and postdoctoral training in Demography and Public Policy at the University of Chicago. Professor Coley’s expertise lies in assessing and counteracting economic, social, and racial inequities in mental and behavioral health and educational and economic attainment. Her research employs quantitative, qualitative, and evaluation methodologies to assess and inform social and educational policies and practices at the federal, state, and local level which seek to disrupt the transmission of inequities to children, families, and communities.  Professor Coley’s research has been published in dozens of leading journals and edited volumes, and has received funding from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Australian Research Council, and numerous private foundations.  She was the founding Editor of the Child Evidence Brief series published by the Society for Research in Child Development which translates developmental science to federal and state policy makers, and has held leadership positions in the Society for Research in Child Development, the Society for Research on Adolescence, the Child Care and Early Education Policy Research Consortium, and the University-based Child and Family Policy Consortium.  Her research excellence has been recognized through receipt of a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award, a Social Policy Award from the Society for Research in Adolescence, and the inaugural Mavis Hetherington Award in Applied Developmental Science from the American Psychological Association. 

Samantha Teixeira's, PhD, research focuses on how neighborhood environmental conditions affect youth and how youth can be engaged in creating solutions to environmental problems in their communities. She uses innovative, mixed methods with a focus on participatory approaches including community mapping, photography, and spatial analysis. She has published on the topics of place-based community interventions that address neighborhood environmental disparities, youth-led participatory research, and environmental justice interventions and education. Samantha’s diverse practice experience includes work in child welfare and community development. Dr. Teixeira is the recipient of prestigious awards including the Society for Social Work and Research Outstanding Dissertation Award (2015), and the Association for Community Organization and Social Administration (ACOSA) Emerging Scholar Award (2016). She is currently a member of the editorial boards of the Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal and the Journal of Community Practice.

Gary Adamkiewicz, PhD, MPH, is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health and Exposure Disparities at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He oversees several research initiatives and projects committed to providing new insights into the real-world mechanisms that shape environmental health disparities and to provide new pathways to alleviate these disparities. Gary brings more than 30 years of experience in environmental health to this mission. He has served on EPA’s Environmental Justice Technical Guidance Review Panel, under the auspices of the agency’s Science Advisory Board. He has also served as an advisor to the World Health Organization’s effort to establish indoor air quality guidelines. Dr. Adamkiewicz holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 

Christina Matz, MSW, PhD, FGSA, is an Associate Professor in the Boston College School of Social Work, Chair of the Older Adults & Families Department and Director of the Center on Aging & Work. Her research focuses on meaningful engagement in later-life and its effects on the health and well-being of individuals, families, organizations, communities, and society. She is a co-lead on the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare's Grand Challenge focused on “Advancing Long and Productive Lives” and a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America. She teaches courses in research methods, statistics, program evaluation and aging. In 2017, she won the Teaching Excellence Award and Mentor of the Year award in the Boston College School of Social Work. She has facilitated working partnerships with several Boston-area community organizations and serves as a consultant or advisor for projects national and internationally.

Amanda Tarullo, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University, where she is also Director of the Developmental Science Doctoral Program and a Faculty Affiliate of the Center for Systems Neuroscience. Her research focuses on how sociocontextual factors shape the developing brain and biological stress systems, and on identifying neurodevelopmental mechanisms that link early life stress to child cognitive outcomes. She is an Associate Editor of Developmental Psychobiology and was named an Outstanding Early Career Psychologist by APA Division 52, International Psychology.

Dr. Tara Mandalaywala is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Boston University. She directs the Cognition Across Development (CAD) Lab, which explores how children develop beliefs about the people around them and the places they live in. The goal of the research in the CAD Lab is to better understand how early emerging aspects of cognition and perception help people thrive in their particular environment.

Dr. Lacee Satcher is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at Boston College.  Her primary research interests include race/ethnicity, health & place, social psychology of health, and urban environmental inequality. Her most recent work focuses on the racism-environment-health connection, specifically how systems of oppression organize individuals across space and place in ways that structure their relations with and within the built and natural environment to shape mental and physical health outcomes, health experiences, and place attachment. She has co-authored papers in the areas of environmental justice, racism & children’s health, identity & higher education, African American health, and Black women's mental health. She has sole-authored papers on environmental racism, urban deserts, and health in Environmental Sociology and Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. Her current research projects include 1) exploring climate change engagement and climate change-related health among older Black Americans in southern US cities and the Boston area; 2) exploring the usefulness of AI-enhanced urban gardening for fostering STEM identity, place identity, and environmental responsibility among youth of color in Boston; and 3) understanding intraracial differences in place attachment, stress exposure and perceptions of environmental inequality among Black residents in public housing in South Boston.

Zhirui is a social worker and social gerontologist who uses mixed methods to understand social and health disparities about environmental stressors. Zhirui ‘s research is informed by her practical experience with older adults in Hong Kong, Canada, and the United States. She is dedicated to advancing understanding of the challenges faced by vulnerable populations (e.g., older adults, low-income populations) in disaster risk reduction and climate risk management, and to advocating for a more inclusive and equitable approach to disaster management. Since joining the HOME team, Zhirui has expanded her research to examine the built environment, focusing on the impacts of housing and neighborhoods on human health and well-being.

María Paula Jiménez Sáenz, M.S.W., is a Research Associate at the Boston College School of Social Work and the Lynch School of Education, where she coordinates the HOME Project. She has over nine years of experience in research, community development, and program evaluation across academia, nonprofit, private, and humanitarian sectors. Her previous roles include work with AHP’s Center for Research and Evaluation, Health Resources in Action, Jesuit Refugee Services in Kenya, and Catholic Relief Services in Central America. A native Spanish speaker fluent in English, she holds an M.S.W. from Boston College.

Lindsay Lanteri is a PhD candidate in the Applied Developmental and Educational Psychology program in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. She is also a Research Assistant on the HOME project and has supported survey measurement design, qualitative instrument development, data collection and data analysis. Lanteri began her career teaching English abroad, working in program management at City Year, and managing research projects for Providence Public Schools. Her research aims to understand youth mental health and educational outcomes through a focus on neighborhood, family, and school contexts. She is also interested in how policies like housing redevelopment, out-of-school time learning, and school choice influence educational equity. 

Jenna Strauss is a PhD candidate and Graduate Research Assistant at the Boston College School of Social Work. She is a school social worker who is specialized in supporting middle school students and their families. Jenna’s experience serving her Brooklyn public school community deepened her interest in examining the different factors, both in and out of school, affecting adolescent outcomes. Her current research centers on the intersection of the neighborhood environment and adolescents’ school outcomes.

Yilin Wang is a PhD candidate in the Applied Developmental and Educational Psychology program at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. She is a Graduate Research Assistant on the HOME project, primarily working with Asian residents and supporting both quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis. Yilin's work focuses on how social policies, such as child care subsidies and public housing redevelopment, influence family well-being and early childhood development. One of her current projects, as part of the HOME study, explores parents' perceptions of neighborhood child-friendliness and their parenting strategies from a strengths-based perspective. 

Hannah Goodman is a PhD candidate in the Applied Developmental and Educational Psychology program in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. She works as a research assistant on the HOME project supporting data collection and analysis. Her prior experience is in research on mindfulness and internal family systems with individuals with opioid use disorder, migraines, as well as a study with individuals court-mandated to treatment due to using violence in intimate partner relationships. Hannah’s current research interests aim to understand the role of social systems on aggression, delinquency, and substance use in adolescents and teenagers. She is also interested in policy work and advocacy for juvenile justice reform.

Lizzie DePentu is a PhD student at the Boston College School of Social Work and a Graduate Research Assistant on the HOME project. She began her career with the City of Detroit, working on vacant land and homeownership programs, and later worked in Chicago for a regional affordable housing developer and operator, where she evaluated resident service programs and contributed to the development of Permanent Supportive Housing and mixed-income projects. Her research interests include housing stability and resident well-being, with particular interest in how housing development policy and property management shape outcomes in subsidized housing.