Aprile D Benner
Faculty Research Associate — Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles
Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences
- E-mail: email@example.com
- Phone: 512-232-1964, 512-471-8353
- Office: SEA 2.442; CLA 2.406D
- Campus Mail Code: G1800
Aprile Benner received her PhD in Education from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2007. After that, she completed a one-year postdoctoral research position in Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She then completed a NICHD-funded Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA postdoctoral fellowship at the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin.
At the broadest level, her substantive research interests center on the development of low-income and minority youth, working at the intersection of ecological and life course perspectives. Her program of research centers on two primary themes. The first examines children and adolescents’ experiences across school transitions, placing particular attention on changes in academic performance and engagement, socioemotional well-being, and perceptions of school climate. Her work places school transitions in a larger developmental context and focuses on the moderating impact of changing ecologies on students’ school transition experiences as well as how experiences of ethnic incongruence and school ethnic diversity impact students’ transition success. The second area examines how various ecological contexts affect adolescent development. In particular, this research explores how multiple ecological systems (e.g., families, schools, peers), both independently and conjointly, affect adolescents’ developmental competencies and the pernicious influences of perceptions of discrimination for adolescents’ development.