About
Leanne Whiteside-Mansell, Ed.D., is a Professor in the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine.
She is also the Director of the DFPM Research and Evaluation Division and leads a dynamic professional staff of over 50 researchers. In that role, she continues to advance her research agenda while mentoring faculty and collaborating with inspiring colleagues.
Her research has focused on the family, environmental, and maternal factors linked with poor psychosocial and physical development for young children in families living in poverty. She has developed and examined the psychometrics of instruments in these populations, conducted studies to investigate the impact of childcare, home environment, and parenting on child development, and tested complex, theoretical models of mediation and moderation.
She has focused on the link between educator/home visitor and parent in the effort to improve the quality of family engagement and reduction of adverse childhood experiences. In that role, she leads the Family Engagement research and dissemination that includes the Family Map, TIPS for Great Kids, and Strengthening Families projects and training. The Family Map Inventories have been documented as a tool to identify adverse childhood experiences (ACES) for children birth to age 5 at risk (in collaboration with Dr. McKelvey). She is also co-developer Together We Inspire Smart Eating (WISE) an obesity prevention for preschool children (in collaboration with Dr. Swindle), is active in research to reduce unintentional injuries (in collaboration with Dr. Aitken), and HIV prevention interventions (in collaboration with Ms Sockwell).