Talk
Parental Matchmaking in China: Stratified Resources, Marriage Opportunities, and Child Well-being

Bio
Pan Wang is an Associate Professor of Chinese and Asian Studies at the University of New South Wales. She is the author of Love and Marriage in Globalizing China (Routledge, 2015) and Love and Romance in China: From Comrades and Partners to AI Lovers (Bloomsbury, 2025). She is currently a Guest Editor of the Social Sciences Special Issue “Intimate Relationships in Diverse Social and Cultural Contexts” (2024).

Talk
Breastfeeding as a Collective Achievement: Families, Communities, and Lactation Outcomes in Early Childhood

Bio
John Bartkowski (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin) is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Author of over 100 articles and four books, his work examines social factors that facilitate and inhibit family functioning, child development, and public health. He is also the President of Bartkowski & Associates Research Team, a firm that has evaluated federal, state, and foundation grants in the U.S.

Talk
Breastfeeding as a Collective Achievement: Families, Communities, and Lactation Outcomes in Early Childhood

Bio
Katherine Klee (M.S., University of Texas at San Antonio) is a Lead Evaluator at Bartkowski & Associates Research Team. Much of her published work explores social influences on mental and physical health. A series of her publications has examined suicide risk reduction factors and the results of suicide prevention initiatives.

Talk
Beyond the “Sponge Concept”: Toward an Ontology of F-A-M-I-L-Y in Family Science

Bio
Joseph G. Grzywacz is an interdisciplinary population health scientist and academic leader. He currently serves as an Associate Dean for Research and Faculty at San Jose State University, and is an Editor-in-Chief of MDPI's Family Sciences. His 20+ years of continuous NIH-funded scholarship examine how work and family shape health and health equity across the course of life. He has published hundreds of peer-reviewed articles and mentored many emerging researchers.

Talk
Changing Marriage and Fertility Aspirations: An Examination of Young Adults in the Philippines

Bio
Dr. Sampson Lee Blair is a family sociologist and demographer at The State University of New York (Buffalo). He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Virginia Tech and his Ph.D. from Penn State. Much of his research focuses on family relationships, with particular emphasis on child, adolescent, and young adult development. He received the Fulbright Scholar Award from the U.S. Department of State, wherein he conducted research on parental involvement and children’s educational attainment in the Philippines. He has examined a wide variety of relationship dynamics within families around the globe. Furthermore, he has published 31 books, in addition to numerous journal articles and book chapters, and has presented over 160 research papers at conferences in the U.S. and abroad, while also serving as a keynote speaker on many occasions. His recent research has focused on marriage and fertility patterns in China and the Philippines. With Timothy J. Madigan and Fang Fang, he published Mate Selection in China: Causes and Consequences in the Search for a Spouse (2022) and Sociology of China: An Introduction (2025). He has served as Chair of the Children and Youth research section of the American Sociological Association, as senior editor of Sociological Inquiry, Guest Editor of Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, and on the Editorial Boards of Asian Women, Family Sciences, Family Transitions, Journal of Applied Youth Studies, Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, Journal of Family Issues, Marriage and Family Review, Social Justice Research, Sociological Inquiry, International Journal of Criminology and Sociology, and Sociological Viewpoints. He also serves on the international advisory board of Tambara at the Ateneo de Davao University in the Philippines.

Talk
Navigating Displacement: Perceptions, Challenges, and Resilience of Transnational Ukrainian Refugee Families in Cyprus

Bio
Assistant Professor in Applied Linguistics/Multilingualism and Coordinator of the MA in TESOL program at the Department of English Studies, University of Cyprus. She is Co-Director of the Testing, Teaching and Translation Lab and the Discourse, Context and Society Lab, and Chair of the Cyprus Teachers of English Association. Dr Karpava is an MC member of CLILNetLE COST Action and WG member of the TraFaDy COST Action. Dr Karpava is the Editor of several volumes on multilingualism and heritage language development (BRILL, 2024; Springer, 2025). She has presented her research at numerous international conferences and published her research work in various peer-reviewed journals. Her area of research is applied linguistics, second/third language acquisition, bilingualism, multilingualism, sociolinguistics, teaching, and education.https://www.ucy.ac.cy/dir/en/cb-profile/skarpa01