Ava Reck

Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2025

Ava Reck, recent Ph.D. graduate in human development and family science from the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, conducts research on the sociocultural and neurobehavioral mechanisms of mental health in children and adolescents. Under the mentorship of professors Steve Kogan and Assaf Oshri, she has examined how poverty, neglect, and racial discrimination influence mental health through family and neurocognitive pathways. Reck has published 12 peer-reviewed articles, with six as first author. Her research on internalized racism and conduct problems in Black adolescents and food insecurity’s impact on adolescent brain development has received national attention. During her time at UGA, she was awarded a Georgia Clinical & Translational Science Alliance grant and multiple university-wide fellowships. Now a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Translational Neuroscience at the University of Oregon, Reck continues to advance interdisciplinary research on developmental risk and resilience.