Her areas of expertise include the development of self regulation in the context of the parent child relationship, child abuse prevention, program evaluation, and methods research designs. Dr. Russell’s recent work on the impact of parent-child relationships on children’s outcomes includes consideration of contextual and individual risk – from parenting in the face of poverty, or across the normative transition to parenthood. In the latter category of individual risk, Dr. Russell’s recent work with adolescent substance use as a particular normative risk category with self-regulation implications has led to studies of syndemic experiences of women in South Africa, and the complex social influences at play with polysubstance using youth.