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Victoria Luera, a nutrition major at The University of Texas at Austin, has jumped into so many internship opportunities as an undergraduate that her resumé is already overflowing. She has operated the kitchen at Burnet Middle School, worked in several hospitals and clinics assessing patient nutrition, created nutrient handouts and classes for seniors, counseled patients with diabetes in clinics and created interventions for foster youth.

Our picture of the classic bullies and their victims – the pale wallflower perched on a gym bench at a school dance or a gangly bookworm hovering at the edge of a basketball game – is due for an update. According to Stephen Russell, chair of The University of Texas at Austin's Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, "Leave It to Beaver-style bullying" isn't the main problem for today's kids. Instead, most social isolation is linked to characteristics like race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or disability. 

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Kristen Harris, a professor in the Department of Neuroscience at The University of Texas at Austin, a $9 million grant to explore the brain in microscopic detail and understand the cell biology of the nervous system. Harris plans to image and map synapses, the tiny points of contact between neurons throughout the brain, in detail and to model synapse function and share the data publicly for use by colleagues throughout the world.

Despite increased acceptance of same-sex marriage and workplace equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people many LGB youth continue to have higher-than-heterosexual rates of drinking, according to a new paper published today in Addiction.

When children avoid school to avoid bullying, many states' schools can lose tens of millions of dollars in funding, and California alone loses an estimated $276 million each year because children feel unsafe.

When you dine on curry and baked apples, enjoy the fact that you are eating something that could play a role starving — or even preventing — cancer.

Professor and chair of the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences Stephen Russell has received the prestigious Distinguished Book Award from Division 44—the American Psychological Association's Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues.

Before Elmo and Cookie Monster come alive on the small screen, childhood experts like Jennifer Kotler Clarke, Vice President of Content Research & Evaluation at Sesame Workshop, conduct experiments and review data to ensure these and other Sesame Street Muppets have the intended impact on children, parents and educators all over the world.

For the last three years, Michelle Eng has risen at 4:30am twice a week in order to serve breakfast to the homeless before heading to class. But what is even more impressive about this pre-med graduating senior is her spirited enthusiasm and the fact that the hours spent downtown are a tiny portion of what she donates to Austin's campus and community.

Mothers have been celebrated and honored in the US for the last century on a national Mother's Day. But we all also know that families—and perhaps especially mothers—are under increasing pressure, financial, social and otherwise. Supporting mothers is critical for moms, kids, businesses and communities, and research from the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at UT Austin is pointing to what can be done.