New HDFS Faculty

Christy Rogers

Christy Rogers earned her Ph.D. in Human Development and minor in Quantitative Psychology at the University of California, Davis and received additional training as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience. These experiences informed her investigation of adolescent decision-making and development through a family context at multiple levels of analysis including social, cognitive, and neurobiological processes.

As she joins the HDFS faculty at Texas Tech and the 2019-2020 academic year begins, Christy is excited to develop her research lab—Social Influence on Brain and Socioemotional development Lab (SIBS Lab) and looks forward to welcoming undergraduate and graduate students to the lab and training them in various methods to better understand how the family context, particularly sibling relations, can promote well-being during adolescent development. Furthermore, she finds connecting with students and mentoring rewarding. During the fall 2019 semester, Dr. Rogers will be teaching Family Dynamics of Interaction. In this course, she will examine the interpersonal processes in the family of origin and the family of destination. Specifically, she and her students will discuss patterns of family interactions, communication between different family members, communication during family stress, and how family dynamics can contribute to individual health and well-being.

On the research side, Christy plans to continue working on investigating the pathways in the brain that underly adolescent learning of risky behavior from older siblings; specifically, what brain regions of the brain associate when adolescent observe their older siblings engaging in risk-taking behavior. She also plans to launch a longitudinal study that will examine the social and neurobiological processes through which families influence adolescent decision-making and changes in well-being.

Knowing Dr. Rogers' research interests and work, it might not be surprising to note that she considers her older sister her best friend and mentor in all things. As one could imagine, her sister's support and guidance have heavily inspired Christy's research. In fact, Dr. Rogers was her sister's birthing partner for the birth of both of her children, and since then, her nephew and niece have become the light of her life.

Welcome to Lubbock, Texas Tech and the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Dr. Christy Rogers!

Joey Merrin

Gabriel "Joey" Merrin graduated with his doctorate in educational psychology with an emphasis in developmental psychology and applied methodology in May 2017 from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. After graduating, Dr. Merrin took a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in psychology at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, where he conducted adolescent substance use research and taught a course on drugs and behavior.
He is very excited to work with students in HDFS and collaborate with faculty across the department, college and university. As a school-based researcher, Joey is eager to involve undergraduate and graduate students in various research projects. As a new faculty member, he is also looking forward to learning more about the resources Texas Tech offers to help junior faculty develop their program of research and teaching portfolios.

This fall Dr. Merrin will be teaching HDFS 6365: Quantitative Methods III in Human Development and Family Studies, a graduate course that will cover the foundations of Structural Equation Modeling with some longitudinal extensions. In the spring, he will be teaching a new course entitled HDFS 6363: Risk-Taking and Adolescent Health that will examine foundations, theories, determinants, outcomes, and preventions of adolescent health risk behavior. Dr. Merrin's primary line of research seeks to clarify the developmental pathways underlying the emergence of aggression, substance use, and other problem behaviors during adolescence and in the transition to young adulthood. Much of his research is conducted in a school context where he is able to work directly with students, teachers, and parents and leverage research findings to help schools address the diverse needs of students. His past work has examined such timely topics as the development of delinquency, aggression, substance use, bullying, youth gang involvement, and school safety.

Joey is passionate about helping improve the lives of young people. He is interested in understanding the processes involved in the healthy development of youth leading into adulthood, so they are successful in assuming adult responsibilities and leading a high quality of life. As such, his work has a strong focus on translating and mobilizing knowledge with the goal of informing intervention and prevention efforts to improve the school experience for young people by using applied research designs, leveraging practical implications, and intentional school and community outreach.

Dr. Merrin is originally from Chicago and loves pizza. In his free time he enjoys cooking, dancing, traveling, and using the latest technologies. Two fun facts about him are that he has better than perfect vision (20/12) and he competed on Fear Factor Live and came in second place. HDFS is so happy to welcome Dr. Joey Merrin to our faculty!