Kierra Sattler

Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin

Research

In my research, I use an interdisciplinary approach to investigate the risk and resilience processes that contribute to children’s academic, social-emotional, and physical health outcomes. Specifically, my research focuses on childhood exposures to poverty or maltreatment as sources of risk, with the aim of advancing scientific knowledge and informing interventions that promote the well-being of children from high-risk families. I incorporate advanced quantitative and longitudinal methods (e.g., structural equation modeling, multi-level survival analysis, and autoregressive regression models) to understand the processes of risk and resilience across early childhood. I use both large-scale secondary data (e.g., Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being) and administrative data (e.g., Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, Wisconsin Administrative Data Core). I have three lines of research:

1. Investigating the processes of risk and resilience within the contexts of poverty or child maltreatment
2. Examining how contextual factors influence mothers’ parenting behaviors
3. Investigating the influence of foster care experiences on children who have experienced maltreatment