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The influence of TV advertising on young children’s requests
for particular treats was the basis of Gene Brody’s first
grant-funded project. His latest interest is exploring whether families
and communities can “turn on and off” genes that are
connected to depression and other mental disorders.
In between, Brody—a Distinguished Research Professor in the
child and family development department of the College of Family
and Consumer Sciences—has built a body of research establishing
how parents, other caregivers, siblings and peers influence children’s
developmental growth despite a variety of chronic stressors, such
as poverty, illness and racism. Perhaps more importantly, he has
translated those research findings into family-centered preventive
intervention programs for rural African-American families, programs
that are currently undergoing rigorous testing.
“I look at that first grant as the most important one I ever
received, because it helped me believe that I could do this,”
says Brody, whose accomplishments have earned him the title of Regents
Professor.
Regents Professorships are bestowed by the University System Board
of Regents on truly distinguished faculty of the University of Georgia
whose scholarship or creative activity is recognized both nationally
and internationally as innovative and pace setting. The professorships
are granted for an initial period of three years and are renewable
for a second three-year period based on recommendations. Awardees
receive a $10,000 permanent increase in salary. They also receive
a yearly fund of $5,000 in support of their scholarship.
“Dr. Brody has always been ahead of the times in asking cutting-edge
research questions,” according to FACS Dean Sharon Y. Nickols.
“He has succeeded in securing substantial external funding
to carry out these projects, and his dissemination of the findings
has earned the respect of his colleagues.”
Brody joined the child and family development faculty in 1976. In
1995, he was named director of the Center for Family Research of
the Institute for Behavioral Research. The center is the site of
$20 million of externally funded research supported by the National
Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Child Health
and Human Development, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and
Alcoholism, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Georgia Children’s
Trust Fund.
Most recently, Brody was awarded a Developing Center Grant from
NIMH to expand the center’s development, implementation and
dissemination of familyoriented preventive interventions to rural
African-American families, thus advancing the theory and methodology
of prevention science.
“Gene Brody has been a leader among child developmentalists
for a long time in not just arguing for the need to study multiple
features of the family system, but in successfully doing so,”
according to Jay Belsky, director of the Institute for the Study
of Children, Families and Social Issues at Birkbeck University of
London, who wrote a letter in support of Brody’s nomination.
“Beyond simply ‘talking the ecological/contextual/family
talk,’ Gene Brody and his research team have ‘walked
the ecological/contextual/family walk’ when it comes to turning
theoretical rhetoric into empirical reality.”
Although he’s honored to be named a Regents Professor, Brody
says he primarily views the award as an opportunity to explain to
the university community and the general public the broad range
of dynamic research that’s occurring in the behavioral sciences.
“I want people to know that science can be used to answer
important questions about children and families,” he says.
“And those answers can be used to develop prevention and intervention
programs to assist families.”
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