My research emphasizes the allocation of financial and human resources by families coping with stressful circumstances, including immigration and resettlement, family separation, unemployment, and conflicts between work and family responsibilities. My immigration-related research includes a quantitative longitudinal study (3 waves over 10 years) of employment, unemployment, family, and consumer patterns of Vietnamese and Lao refugees; effects of financial support to family in Sudan on refugee men's adjustment; and views of settlement counselors and leaders in the Vietnamese and Sudanese communities about the effect of remittances on family and community well-being. My recent work and family research focuses on families with one member working in distant and dangerous settings. This line of research began with an archival study of sailors on Arctic voyages, and now includes NASA astronauts. I am part of a multinational group of researchers (P. Suedfeld, PI, Canada, and co-investigators V. Gushin, Russia, & J. Boyd, USA) who have received a Canadian Space Agency contract to interview retired Cosmonauts. Marital and family relations, and work-life issues are my contributions to this retrospective study.
