Elizabeth Skowron, a professor of Human Development and Family Studies and the Associate Director of the Child Maltreatment Solutions Network, has dedicated herself to the prevention of child abuse and neglect.  

Skowron's research focuses on examining parent-child interactions at the fundamental level using autonomic tracking, such as monitoring changing heart rates to better understand parents while parenting. 

"We use autonomic physiology measures to understand patterns of autonomic arousal in caregivers while they're in the act of parenting," Skowron explained "Putting together this fine-grained approach helps us to better understand moment-by-moment caregiving processes while we're also tracking patterns." 

Currently, Skowron is focusing on prevention that is aimed towards interrupting the link between engagement in parenting and the psychological response that causes adverse parenting. 

"We're studying the effectiveness of a couple of specific interventions, using randomized clinical trials and are evaluating outcomes and testing mechanisms of change," she said. "The point is that some of these findings are beginning to study what's going on under the skin while parents are in the act of parenting. You find that there are some parents in which positive parenting is really, challenging and they have these physiological reactions that sort of work against them." 

“There’s still a pretty significant gap between our knowledge about and the sizable number of effective prevention and treatment intervention programs”

– Elizabeth Skowron,  professor of Human Development and Family Studies and the Associate Director of the Child Maltreatment Solutions Network

Skowron received her bachelor's degree from Ohio State in psychology, where she was a collegiate swimmer. Throughout her time as an athlete, she was often told that she should go into sports psychology, but she had a different plan, one that would allow her to shape the conditions of those in her community.  

"I thought, 'I really need to focus my talents and skills and abilities on supporting families in our community that don't have access to enough resources," she said. "It's a feeling of you've got to leave the world a little bit better than you found it." 

Throughout her time as a researcher, Skowron has found that her line of work comes with obstacles, but a message of hope has stayed with her. 

"One of the biggest things, one of the most significant things that I've learned, that we really hammer home with the students working with us in our lab, is that the vast majority of these parents deeply, deeply love their children, and they are struggling in one way or another," Skowron said. "Whether it's their own life history or struggles with drug addiction or violence, they love their children, and they want help, and they want to be there for their children."  

Prevention in terms of child abuse and neglect takes on various forms and may not be as easily noticeable from an outsider's perspective.  

Skowron said that success to her is the ability to implement measures to reduce further harm. "It involves helping parents and those children, to prevent another episode of it from happening again, and to preserve the family being able to stay together." 

“The PRC has this amazing combination of resources, both in human capital and support for the kinds of projects and work that we want to be doing”

–Elizabeth Skowron,  professor of Human Development and Family Studies and the Associate Director of the Child Maltreatment Solutions Network

While she's optimistic about the future, there are still gaps in her field that need to be addressed.  

"I think there are issues on the policy side of things. There's still a pretty significant gap between our knowledge about and the sizable number of effective prevention and treatment intervention programs," Skowron said. "And the gap is still pretty wide between the existence of those programs and families' abilities to access those programs." 

Since joining the Prevention Research Center last November, she's seen firsthand how the resources at the PRC can translate to impact.  

"The PRC has this amazing combination of resources, both in human capital and support for the kinds of projects and work that we want to be doing. The number of collaborators working across diverse areas, to people studying cellular processes, all the way to people studying policy, social policy and change," Skowron said. "In that space, it makes it a really enriching place to be able to do our work." 

Much like others in prevention science, Skowron is always learning and working to create meaningful change and with the help of those at the PRC, she's able to expand her impact.  

"We have a few exciting new approaches we're going to be working on in the maltreatment at work, and I think folks in the PRC are going to be doing some things as well. So, it's an exciting time to be an affiliate," she said.