Sylvia M. Asay, Ph.D., CFLE, is a Professor of Family Studies and Chair of the Family Studies and Interior Design Department at the University of Nebraska, Kearney. She received her Ph.D. in Community and Human Resources at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, in 1998 and received her Certified Family Life Educator credentials through the National Council on Family Relations. As a post-secondary educator, she has taught a wide range of courses including Marriage and Family Relationships, Cross-Cultural Family Patterns, Families in Crisis, and Family Resource Management. Her authored books include Strong Families Around the World: Strengths-Based Research and Practice (Haworth) and Family… Resource Management (SAGE).John DeFrain, Ph.D., is an Extension Professor of Family and Community Development at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he has been a teacher, international researcher, and outreach specialist for 34 years. He co-founded the Parent Aide Support Service, a program in Lincoln, Nebraska, which has served parents under severe stress for 25 years, and was a co-founder of the National and International Symposium on Building Family Strengths, which has cooperated in creating more than 30 family strengths conferences nationally and internationally since 1978. He has co-authored more than 60 professional articles and 24 books, including Secrets of Strong Families (Little, Brown); Marriages and Families: Intimacy, Diversity, and Strengths , 6th Edition (McGraw-Hill); and Strong Families Around the World: Strengths-Based Research and Practice (Haworth).
Linda Skogrand is an assistant professor and family life extension specialist at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. She began her professional career as a social worker in the inner-city of St. Louis, Missouri, and throughout her career has enjoyed a balance between academic institutions and social service organizations. Her current position as an extension specialist allows her to take knowledge and research findings and make them available to people in communities in Utah and throughout the nation.Skogrand’s social service experience includes providing HIV/AIDS education programs for street kids, people in prison, and gang members, and overseeing the design of an AIDS house for… the Latino population. She has also taught family courses at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, for 17 years and was adjunct faculty at the University of Minnesota for several years.She has published articles focusing on values in parent education, the lives of families who have experienced Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, transcendence of traumatic childhoods, spirituality, strong Latino marriages, and debt and marriage. She has co-authored several books including Surviving and Transcending a Traumatic Childhood: The Dark Thread, Coping with Sudden Infant Death, and Sudden Infant Death: Enduring the Loss. . Her current research focuses on strong marriages in the Latino and American Indian cultures and she is currently conducting a national study of what makes “great” marriages with John DeFrain.Skogrand has been married to her high school sweetheart, Steven Gilbertson, for the past seven years and resides in Logan, Utah. She has three adult children, Aaron, Jennifer, and Sara. Her children’s multiracial heritage has taught her much about diversity.