Haley Sherman: Cindy Winter Scholarship Award Recipient

During her undergraduate program, Haley:

• Was on the president’s and dean’s list several times
• Received honors from the National Society of Collegiate Scholars and university awards for academic competence
• Was inducted into a leadership society called the Seminole Torchbearers
• Launched the Family and Child Sciences Club in her department:
  • This required petitioning her department, the college, and Student Affairs to create a Family Science professional development organization, and then recruiting students and following the required steps to establish a Registered Student Organization

During her master’s degree program, Haley:

• Developed 5 community-facing articles focused on translating Family Science into tangible takeaways for the Extension community, military policymakers, and families in transition
• Co-created 6 regional and national research-focused presentations
• Completed a multi-study thesis focused on the intersections of stress, coping mechanisms, and well-being
• Became a Certified Family Life Educator
• Became a member of the AU HDFS Graduate Student Organization
• Joined NCFR and assumed leadership roles in the department, the university, and the profession:
  • In the department, she served as secretary of the Graduate Student Organization
  • At the university-level, she served as a mentor for first year graduate students and was recognized for her accomplishments via the Graduate First-Year Experience Mentor Award
  • Regarding the profession, Haley was appointed the Graduate Student Advisor for the regional NCFR affiliate, the Southeastern Council on Family Relations (SECFR)

During her doctoral degree program, Haley has…

• Contributed to 2 grant proposals submitted (one funded!)
• 4 peer-reviewed publications (2 as first author and several more in the pipeline)
• 18 research-based presentations to include 5 at NCFR and 4 at SECFR (11 as first author)
• Continued investing in others and the HDFS discipline. She:
  • Serves as a mentor for the university for the first-year graduate students (and she won another mentoring award!)
  • Served as secretary then treasurer of the Graduate Student Organization
  • Mentored an HDFS undergraduate research fellow throughout their research process (from proposal development to publication), and her mentee even had the chance to present at a national conference!

Haley Sherman is an exceptional student and professional. She has a drive to develop sound scholarship and has a focus on leadership, engagement, and outreach to equip communities with research-based solutions. As an emerging scholar, she understands that being part of a discipline, especially Family Science, is seen as a give-and-take relationship – such that she learns from others as they invest in her and her future, and in turn, she invests in others as they learn from her.

Haley is a fourth-year doctoral candidate in Human Development and Family Science. Among many things, she is a Graduate Research Assistant for Military REACH and assists with completing research summaries on the well-being of military families and research reports for the Department of Defense.