"I am brought to tears at each moment I witness one of my children's or one of my students' milestones of growth, new insight, or contribution. As parents and mentors, we provide 'guardrails' for their pathway and it is humbling and fulfilling to feel a small part of their choices and their accomplishments."

Francesca Adler-Baeder's work focuses on the promotion of interpersonal competence, relational health, and family resilience and includes work with youth and adults in low-resource families, structurally complex families, and military families. She has worked for more than two decades in the active bridging of research and practice through program design, curriculum and resource development, and both basic and applied action research. She serves as the director of the National Extension Relationship and Marriage Education Network and the National Stepfamily Resource Center, and on the advisory board of the Military Family Research Institute. Adler-Baeder has been involved in building the Healthy Relationship Education Initiative in Alabama with state and community partners for the past 11 years, securing more than $21 million in competitive external grant funding to support the statewide project. She has given more than 150 presentations at conferences and meetings and has more than 50 academic publications. Adler-Baeder is married to Patrick, and they have four children, Mark, Kristina, Jessica, and Juliana.