Families

Cody Hollist is a licensed independent marriage and family therapist who specializes in the treatment of complex trauma, particularly childhood sexual abuse. He leads the Trauma and Resiliency Explored Laboratory (T-REx) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which pursues in-depth examination of how traumatic experiences, whether personal or societal, leave enduring marks on psychological and social well-being. He has worked extensively in many regions of Brazil to strengthen families in the face of significant adversity, including building family supports for those who have a child with microcephaly resulting from Congenital Zika Virus Syndrome. He received a Fulbright Scholar award to work in Sao Paulo addressing high suicide rates among young adults who experienced childhood trauma. In Rio Grande do Sul, his team uses a community-based participatory research approach to address the harm caused by growing up in extreme poverty in high-risk neighborhoods. Hollist, an associate professor in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Studies, is former director of UNL’s Marriage and Family Therapy program, former president of the Nebraska Marriage and Family Therapy Association, and former director of UNL's Global Experiences Office. As a chaplain in the Air National Guard, he deployed to the Middle East in 2018. His teaching includes clinical training for family therapists and for elementary educators working with children and families who have experienced trauma. (Updated December 2024)

Sociologist Kimberly Tyler studies dating violence and substance misuse among college students and youth experiencing homelessness. She has published multiple research articles examining how dating violence and campus sexual assault are influenced by mental health, racial or ethnic background, substance misuse and sorority membership, among other factors. Other topics of interest include child abuse and neglect and HIV risk behaviors. In August 2022, she and her team were awarded a five-year grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to study risk factors and coping behaviors among youth experiencing homelessness and create a “just-in-time” personal support intervention tool using a mobile phone app. Tyler is the George Holmes University Professor of Sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and serves as the co-director of the Longitudinal Networks Core for UNL’s Rural Drug Addiction Research Center. She teaches upper-level courses on families and family violence. (Updated January 2025.)

Dr. Jordan Soliz is a professor who studies communication and intergroup processes primarily in family and personal relationships. Current projects focus on communication in multiethnic-racial families, interfaith families, and grandparent-grandchild relationships with a goal toward understanding communicative dynamics associated with individual well-being and relational-family solidarity. He also investigates processes and outcomes of intergroup contact and intergroup dialogue as well as communication processes that minimize outgroup attitudes (e.g., ageism) and/or buffer effects of discrimination.

Brenden Timpe, an assistant professor ofeconomics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, studies the links between public policy, the labor market and family structure and behavior. Labor economics, public economics and economic demographics are his specialty areas. His work has appeared in Science, the American Economic Review, the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics and the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. Recent articles include “When Sarah Meets Lawrence: The Effects of Coeducation on Women’s College Major Choices” (American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, forthcoming); “Prep School for Poor Kids: The Long-Run Impact of Head Start on Human Capital and Economic Self-Sufficiency (American Economic Review, December 2021); “The Long-Run Effects of America’s First Paid Maternity Leave Policy” (in progress.)”