Auburn Family Friday Speaker Series resumes with talk on supporting military families

Award-winning educator and researcher Mallory Lucier-Greer will continue the Auburn Family Friday Speaker Series Friday, Nov. 1, at 3 p.m. in the Auburn Alumni Center. Lucier-Greer, associate professor in the College of Human Sciences, is the principal investigator of Auburn’s Military REACH program, a partnership funded by the Department of Defense between the DoD’s Office of Military Family Readiness Policy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture/National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Lucier-Greer will present, “Mobilizing Family Science Research to Support Military Families.” She will be joined by C. Eddy Mentzer, associate director of the DoD’s Office of Military Family Readiness Policy.

“As a family scientist and Auburn alumna, I welcome the opportunity to speak about the important work that Auburn is doing to support military families around the globe,” Lucier-Greer said. “Our team evaluates and synthesizes hundreds of research studies a year that are focused on the well-being of military families, and then we translate that research into action-oriented applications.”

Lucier-Greer’s work examines how stressors affect families and the individuals who reside within them. Family stressors include both normative family transitions, such as marriage and navigating co-parenting, as well as situational stressors that are specific to a family’s context. For military families, situational stressors include, but are not limited to, transitions related to deployments and regular relocations. She and her team identify leverage points, or points of intervention, to help families produce positive changes even in the context of stress. These leverage points range from community-based resources, such as family programs and supportive networks, to couple- and family-level skills, including demonstrations of warmth, support and connection. Last year, she and her colleagues were honored with the Excellence in Research on Military and Veteran Families Award from Purdue University’s Military Family Research Institute. 

Lucier-Greer earned her master’s and doctorate degrees at Auburn University. In 2017, she joined Auburn’s faculty in the College of Human Sciences’ Department of Human Development and Family Studies.

Mentzer brings more than 27 years of personal and professional experience in supporting military families through a variety of roles across the Department of Defense and federal government. He joined the DoD’s Office of Military Family Readiness Policy in August 2010 and assumed the duties of associate director in 2016. As associate director, he is responsible for management of the DoD’s family readiness and well-being policies and programs. These efforts include policy oversight and programmatic support to the military service-delivered family readiness system to include child care and youth development, family support centers and a variety of initiatives designed to assist service members and their families throughout their military life.

Mentzer leads a team focused on easing the impact of challenges faced by military families as a result of the often unpredictable and mobile nature of military life. In addition to policy and programmatic oversight across the DoD, he works regularly with a variety of stakeholders representing both intra-governmental, nonprofit and community based organizations. In this role, Mentzer manages the DoD/USDA Partnership for Military Families. This unique federal partnership leverages the expertise of land grant university research, programming and faculty in support of military families.