Dr. Aaron Ebata, associate professor of human development and family studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will present “Profession to Passion: Making a Late Career Move to #Getoutside” at 7 p.m. on Thursday, February 6, in Stevenson Hall, room 401. This talk is part of the Children’s Studies Minor Speaker Series.
In this talk Ebata will describe a theoretical framework developed with his former student, Dina Izenstark, and a series of studies examining how time in nature affects families, and the meaning that family-based nature activities have in the memories of college students. He will discuss the implications that these results have for contemporary families.
Ebata spent more than 20 years as an applied scholar who developed technological and community-based programs to support families experiencing normative and non-normative stresses. He then set off in a new direction to see if spending time outside in nature could promote positive family relationships.
Ebata received his master’s degree and Ph.D. in human development and family studies from Pennsylvania State University, and his bachelor’s in psychology and biology from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. His research interests include family life education, impact of nature on family health and well-being, and supporting families with children on the autism spectrum.
For additional information or to request special accommodations, please contact the Department of Psychology at (309) 438-8651.
