Prestigious Fellowship Allows SPP Post-Doc to Continue her Research

Michelle Bragg, who received her Ph.D. from SPP in January, recently accepted a fellowship from the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW). The two-year program will allow her to continue researching social fathering, the subject of her dissertation.

“Social fathers are men who help raise children who aren’t their own,” explains Bragg, whose dissertation, “Social Fathering Among African American Men and the Impact on Child and Family Outcomes,” was based on secondary analysis of the 1997 Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics.

At WCW, Bragg hopes to expand her research by using mixed methods—both qualitative and quantitative analytical tools. In addition, she wants to broaden the scope of her subject. “I’ll continue to look at African American social fathers, but I’ll probably also branch out to look at social fathering in an international context,” she says.

The WCW program, which provides Bragg with a stipend as well as career development and mentoring opportunities, will help her pursue her long-term career goals. “Hopefully this experience will afford me the opportunity to get some good publications out and to secure a tenure-track position so I can continue to research and teach,” she says.

Bragg feels that her experiences with faculty and staff at SPP prepared her to meet the challenges ahead. “At Mason, I got a lot of good support from my professors. They gave me the opportunity to work on projects for them to further develop my research and writing skills,” she says. “So now I have a good understanding of how research and policy are connected.”

Bragg is among three full-time research fellows at WCW, which unites the Center for Research on Women and the Stone Center for Developmental Services and Studies in an interdisciplinary community of scholars engaged in research, training, analysis and action.

The fellowship positions are sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The training program is located at WCW in Wellesley, Mass., and jointly administered by WCW senior researchers and selected Wellesley College faculty.