Family Well-Being for the Greater Good: Spring 2026 Collaborative Learning Group for People Supporting Parents

Maryam Abdullah, Ph.D., is the Parenting Program Director of the Greater Good Science Center (GGSC) at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a developmental psychologist with expertise in parent-child relationships and children’s social and emotional development. At the GGSC, Maryam’s role is to develop resources for professionals and organizations providing parenting education to foster parents' well-being and to help parents nurture compassion and resilience in their children. She also shares the latest developmental science findings on Greater Good, the GGSC's online magazine, which offers science-based insights for a meaningful life. Maryam has also been invited to share research findings on parenting and children's social and emotional development with The Washington Post, BBC, CNN, NPR, and more. Prior to joining GGSC, she was an Assistant Project Scientist at the University of California, Irvine Child Development School in the Department of Pediatrics, a school-based behavioral health program where she supported parents and children, and conducted intervention and evaluation research.

Beth Magistad, Ph.D., is a Certified Family Life Educator (CFLE) and has held a Minnesota teaching license in Parent and Family Education since 1998. She spent 20 years teaching a wide variety of courses to both graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Minnesota. She has extensive knowledge of Family Life Education and has taught courses in many of the CFLE content areas including Parent-Child Relationships, Family Policy, Family Resource Management, and courses focused on a variety of interpersonal and family relationships such as Parent as Couples and Aging Families. She served as the Director of Parent and Family Education at the University of Minnesota from 2018-2022. Since 2022, she has been the editor of the National Council on Family Relations CFLE Network newsletter and will be the editor of the new NCFR Nexus newsletter debuting in Fall 2025.

Allison Briscoe-Smith, Ph.D., is a child clinical psychologist with a specialization in trauma and ethnic minority mental health. For over 20 years, she has combined her love of teaching and advocacy by serving as a professor and by directing mental health programs for children experiencing trauma, working with schools, healthcare providers, non-profits and children's media companies as a clinician, consultant, and trainer.  She has founded a consultancy that focuses on creating spaces of belonging and connection across divides. Allison is the Diversity Lead for Student Life at the University of Washington, a Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center (GGSC), and co-instructor of the GGSC’s Bridging Differences course.  She is also a Senior Fellow at Resetting the Table and works frequently with other providers that address bridging and belonging.