ASU's Sanford School faculty earn seed grants to advance research on youth, families and communities

Over the past academic year, faculty members in Arizona State University's T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics have earned a string of seed grants from ASU's Institute for Social Science Research, providing early-stage support for research projects. 

ISSR seed grants award up to $8,000 to kickstart new projects that will lead to competitive external funding proposals. Offered once per semester, the funds help researchers collect preliminary data, build partnerships, test new ideas and lay the groundwork for larger research initiatives.

The Sanford School’s awards from 2025–2026 draw from a breadth of interests and expertise across the school, including issues related to young adults, political experiences, romantic relationships among older adults and identity. Many of the projects align with the school's growing focus on youth and society, examining how families, schools, communities and social environments influence young people's development and well-being.

A project led by Professor Rebecca White, with support from Professor Sarah Lindstrom Johnson and Associate Professor Connor Sheehan, received funding to help communities and organizations better support youth across Arizona.

The funded work, titled "Empowering Arizona's Future: A Data-Driven Decision System for Supporting Youth Thriving," will serve as a pilot project for a future institutional challenge grant proposal. The team will bring together information from existing data sources into a single tool that can help youth-serving organizations identify local strengths, challenges and opportunities for action as they make decisions about programs and services. 

Ultimately, the project seeks to help organizations translate raw data into actionable strategies that support positive outcomes for young people throughout the state.

A team of Sanford School researchers led by Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow Kayla Osman, alongside Associate Professor Brandon Yoo and Professor Rebecca White, received funding to develop and validate a new survey tool examining how families talk about skin tone within Latino communities.

The project focuses on colorism, a form of bias that often favors lighter skin over darker skin. Researchers will develop a survey that assesses the messages Latino youth receive about skin tone from family members, and whether those messages reinforce or challenge colorism.

The new survey will help researchers better understand how beliefs about skin tone are passed down through families and how those beliefs influence identity and family relationships. The team hopes the project will deepen understanding of the experiences of Latino families and provide a new tool for future research.

In 2026, Assistant Professor Rocío Garcia received funding for a project exploring how Latino high school students make sense of messages about relationships and reproductive issues they encounter through school, family, peers and social media.

Through interviews with youth ages 14 to 18 in the Phoenix area, Garcia will examine the messages they encounter on topics such as consent, healthy relationships, body image, contraception, young parenting and future aspirations, and how they interpret them. 

The research will help fill gaps in knowledge about the experiences of Latino youth in Arizona’s social and political landscape while informing the development of public-facing educational materials created in collaboration with youth participants.

Associate Professor Monica Tsethlikai received seed funding in fall 2025 for a project examining how social and environmental factors influence sleep, neurocognitive development and substance use risk during adolescence.

The original project focused on understanding pathways that support healthy development among youth exposed to childhood adversity. Building on that foundation, the research team is developing a larger external grant proposal focused on American Indian and Alaska Native youth, a population that aligns closely with the team's expertise.

The work aims to identify factors that promote healthy development and reduce the likelihood of substance use disorders during adolescence, contributing to future efforts to support youth well-being and resilience.

Associate Professor Cassandra Cotton received funding in 2025 for a study investigating how older adults weigh the financial and legal implications of forming new romantic partnerships later in life.

Many adults over 55 are single due to widowhood or divorce, and many hope to find a partner again. But decisions about dating, living together or remarrying often involve more than romance. Marriage can affect finances, inheritance plans, Social Security benefits and family relationships, creating difficult choices for older adults and their families.

Cotton's project will include interviews with older adults, their adult children and legal and financial professionals in Arizona to better understand how people navigate these decisions later in life. The findings may help inform educational resources and public-facing materials for older adults, families and professionals working with aging populations.

For Sanford School researchers, ISSR seed grants provide an important pathway for developing new research programs and pursuing larger external funding opportunities. Taken as a whole, the funded projects examine issues that affect people across the lifespan while advancing the school's work on youth, families and communities.

“These projects tackle different topics, but they share a common goal: understanding the social conditions that help people and communities succeed,” said Stephen T. Russell, professor and director of the Sanford School. “That’s a central part of our work and mission as a school, and it’s exciting to see the important work our researchers are launching in this space.”