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Category: Awards & Recognition

Welcome to the team, Candy Muñoz

CYFS welcomes Candy Muñoz, the center’s new operations and finance manager.

Name: Candy Muñoz

Title: Operations and Finance Manager

Hometown: Omaha, Nebraska

Where did you work prior to joining CYFS? What was your role there, and what did it entail?

“My professional career has given me experience in both high-level financial strategies and direct student support.  Immediately prior to joining CYFS, I served as the Director of Student Financial Services at Creighton University, where I led a specialized team responsible for integrating financial aid, student accounts and billing processes. This team provided streamlined support to students, parents and academic staff. Full Article

NAECR selects 2025-26 Policy Fellows

The Nebraska Academy for Early Childhood Research has selected six faculty members to serve as Policy Fellows for the 2025-26 academic year.

The NAECR Policy Fellows Program is designed to educate early childhood researchers on policy processes, impacts and relationships to research; to provide policymakers with insight into the latest early childhood research at the University of Nebraska; and to generate collaboration among researchers and policymakers to develop effective research agendas that enrich early childhood experiences. Full Article

MAP Academy opens call for 2025-26 ‘Catalyst’ proposals

New funding is available to help Nebraska researchers strengthen their data and analyses. 

The Nebraska Academy for Methodology, Analytics and Psychometrics (MAP Academy) is seeking proposals for a competitive funding opportunity created to enhance the rigor of field-based human subjects research at the University of Nebraska.  Full Article

Project searches for solutions to bullying in U.S., South Korea

Jared Noetzel, doctoral candidate in the school psychology program, is leading a dissertation study to explore ways to help reduce bullying in schools through evidence-based, culturally responsive teacher training. Learn more about this project in the CYFS Research Network.

Because bullying often begins and ends at school, teachers are the front line of defense against such behavior.

However, teachers in one country may respond differently than their international counterparts.

Jared Noetzel, doctoral candidate in the school psychology program, is leading a dissertation study on culturally responsive teacher training to prevent bullying in schools. Full Article

National data reveal breastfeeding barriers for new moms at work

From left, Kailey Snyder, assistant professor in the School of Health & Kinesiology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, answers a question at the Nebraska Breastfeeding Coalition’s quarterly meeting last November, along with Nebraska Extension’s Audra Losey. (Courtesy photo)

For new mothers, returning to work often means deciding whether to continue breastfeeding. But systemic barriers often make it difficult to do so.

To explore the relationship between breastfeeding and returning to work, Kailey Snyder, assistant professor in the School of Health & Kinesiology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, partnered with the Nebraska Academy for Methodology, Analytics and Psychometrics (MAP Academy) to examine a decade’s worth of national lactation data. Full Article

CYFS launches Signature Research Impact Program

For the past 20 years, the Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools has remained committed to making positive difference in people’s lives through research in the social, behavioral and educational sciences.

As CYFS looks ahead to the next 20 years, the center is offering a new funding opportunity: The CYFS Signature Research Impact Program. Full Article

MAP Academy selects two faculty to receive Catalyst awards

The Nebraska Academy for Methodology, Analytics and Psychometrics (MAP Academy) is awarding $10,000 through a competitive funding opportunity created to enhance the rigor of field-based human subjects research at the University of Nebraska.

These awards were made possible by a grant from the Nebraska Research Initiative. Full Article

IES’ Albro reflects on CYFS-IES collaboration at celebration breakfast

Elizabeth Albro, commissioner of education research at the Institute of Education Sciences in the U.S. Department of Education, delivers her presentation Dec. 5 at Carolyn Pope Edwards Hall. See photo gallery.

Elizabeth Albro, commissioner of education research at the Institute of Education Sciences in the U.S. Department of Education, recently shared her vision of how the National Center for Education Research (NCER) is advancing the education sciences.

Albro’s Dec. 5 presentation at Carolyn Pope Edwards Hall, “Transforming the Education Sciences Together,” was part of the 20th-anniversary celebration of the Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools. Full Article