Jiawen Cui

Jiawen Cui is a doctoral student at the School of Social Work, The University of Texas at Austin, and a recipient of the Harrington Fellowship. She completed her Master of Social Work (MSW) at Columbia University and her Bachelor of Science in Tourism Development Management & Hotel Management through a joint international program between Arizona State University and Hainan University.

Jiawen’s research interests are grounded in her direct practice with children and families facing poverty and marginalization. As a social worker in an Early Head Start Program in New York, she worked closely with undocumented immigrant and low-income families, connecting them with public services, developmental screenings, and educational resources for their children.Through this work, she observed how poverty-related constraints affected parental mental health and children’s well-being, which motivated her to pursue research on these mechanisms and on the interventions that can more effectively support these families.

Currently, Jiawen works under the mentorship of Dr. Jaime Fuentes-Balderrama. Jiawen’s workcenters on mechanism research, which she pursues in three stages: 1) identifying which family transmission mechanisms, such as parenting practices, parent-child interaction quality, and family functioning, are most affected by parental psychological distress and most consequential for children’s outcomes among families living in poverty; 2) validating these pathways using structural equation modeling and longitudinal data such as the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study; and 3) comparing existing interventions, preventive and therapeutic, to determine which most effectively supports children and families experiencing poverty. Jiawen’s long-term goal is to design and develop community-based interventions tailored to this population and reduce the intergenerational transmission of adversity.