Victim Researcher Profile

BIO

Alaina Brenick is Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences and Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Culture, Health, and Human Development at the University of Connecticut. She received a pre-doctoral traineeship from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to obtain her Ph.D. at the University of Maryland prior to her postdoctoral fellowship at the Friedrich Schiller University, Germany. Dr. Brenick analyzes how diverse groups of youth—sometimes with vastly different societal structures, norms, and expectations—experience, reason about, and respond to intergroup peer conflict and group-based victimization. For over 15 years her research has focused on bias-based discrimination of youth and young adults, including sexual victimization, bullying, and interpersonal and systemic victimization in various social ecologies. Furthermore, her work is translated into multifaceted, contextually, and developmentally appropriate intervention programs. Partnering with schools, community centers, camps, and other non-profit organizations, Dr. Brenick has evaluated existing intervention programs as well as developing a range of empirically driven intervention programs; these programs have ranged from mindfulness based trainings to social-emotional and social-skills based trainings to intergroup contact based programs—all designed to promote compassion, empathy, social equity, and positive intergroup relations while reducing bias-based victimization. Learn more about her work at www.alaina-brenick.uconn.edu

VICTIMIZATION FOCUS

SPECIAL POPULATIONS

Child victims, LGBTQ victims, Men and boys of color, Immigrants and refugees

RESEARCH EXPERTISE

Action research, Community-based participatory research, Data collection, Descriptive studies, Program evaluation, Qualitative studies, Quantitative studies, Quasi-experimental studies, Training and/or technical assistance

VICTIM RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Community-based participatory research, Data collection, Descriptive studies, Program evaluation, Qualitative studies, Quantitative studies, Quasi-experimental studies, Training and/or technical assistance