Kellsie L Prather

Education

Research

Kellsie’s primary research interest is the intergenerational transmission of parenting in contexts of poverty and rural disadvantage. Her dissertation, a qualitative study of parenting in rural Appalachia, focuses on how parents make decisions about parenting and how those decisions change over time. This work documents the ways parents describe their choices, the factors that shape those choices, and how families adapt across different stages of life. By centering parents’ voices, her research aims to build culturally responsive supports that reflect the realities of rural families. Looking ahead, Kellsie plans to expand this work through community-based studies that inform the adaptation and development of intervention and prevention strategies designed with and for rural populations.

Teaching

Teaching Assistant                                                                                                   

HDFS 4860, Parenting and Child Guidance (Fall 2025, Spring 2026)

HDFS 2300, The Science of Studying Human Development and Families (Fall 2024, Spring 2025)

Graduate Student Instructor                                                                                                                          

HDFS 5110, Research Methods in Human Development and Family Science (Spring 2025)

HDFS 4860, Parenting and Child Guidance (Fall 2024)

Prior Professional Positions

Awards

Service

Outreach

UGA FACS Extension Block Party Under the supervision of Dr. Diane Bales, gained foundational experience with Extension programming in early childhood, including programs designed for parents, young children, and early childhood educators. Contributed to the adaptation, implementation, and evaluation of the Extension Block Party program - an interactive one-hour community event where families learn about the importance of block play and practice hands-on activities with their children. This role also provided opportunities to collaborate with Extension agents in Family and Consumer Sciences. 

Advisory Committee

My advisory committee is comprised of: Dr. Niyantri Ravindran (co-major professor) and Dr. Liz Wieling (co-major professor) from the department of HDFS at UGA, and Dr. Geoffrey Brown from the department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Wisconsin. 

Certifications

• Certified Family Life Educator-Provisional, National Council on Family Relations
• GRADTeach Certificate, UGA Center for Teaching and Learning
• Quantitative Methodology Certificate, UGA Human Development and Family Sciences

Poster Presentations

Prather, K., Zhang, S., Wang, Z., Eason, S., & Ravindran, N. (2025, May). Parental Beliefs and Expectations for Children’s Education Attainment as Predictors of the Home Learning Environment. [Poster Presentation]. 2025 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Minneapolis, MN, USA.

Ravindran, R. & Prather, K. (2023, November). Maternal and Paternal Responses to Children’s Negative Emotions Elicited by Parent-Child and Sibling Conflict in Naturalistic Settings. [Poster Presentation]. 2023 National Council on Family Relations Annual Conference, Orlando, FL, USA.

Prather, K. & Ravindran, N. (2023, March). Parental Emotional Functioning as a Predictor of Parental Responsiveness to Child Cries in Naturalistic Settings. [Poster Presentation]. 2023 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.

Prather, K. & Ravindran, N. (2022, July). Within-Family Associations Between Familial Risk and Children's Home Environments Across Infancy and Toddlerhood. [Poster Presentation]. 2022 Meeting of the International Congress of Infant Studies, Ottawa, Canada.

• Appalachian Studies Association (2024 - Present)
• National Council on Family Relations (2023 - Present)
• National Association for the Education of Young Children (2021 - Present)
• Society for Research in Child Development (2021 - Present)
• International Congress of Infant Studies (2021 - Present)
• American Educational Research Association (2021 - Present)
• National Rural Educator Association (2021 - Present)

Current Research

Research Assistant

Working under Dr. Niyantri Ravindran in the Parent-Child Affect, Interaction, and Regulation (PAIR) Lab (2021-present)

Helped with projects such as the Parent-child Interaction Project (completed in 2023) and the Learning, Emotions, and Parenting Project (currently underway). 

As a research assistant, Kellsie has led both virtual and in-person data collection with parents and preschool- to school-aged children. Her work has included guiding families through structured parent-child interaction tasks, managing physiological data collection, and ensuring high-quality data across settings. A central part of her role has been training, supervising, and mentoring undergraduate research assistants, helping them develop coding reliability, data management skills, and confidence in working with families. Several of the students she has mentored have gone on to present their work at both local and national conferences. 

Through these roles, Kellsie has co-authored two manuscripts currently under review and presented findings at national conferences. These experiences have strengthened her expertise in multi-method data collection, team leadership, and translating family research into actionable insights for scholarly audiences. 

Publications

Kramer, L., Ravindran, N., & Prather, K. (2025). Raising siblings is stressful: Measuring parental emotion regulation in the sibling context. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075241312688

Prather, K., & Ravindran, N. (manuscript under review). Children’s negative emotions and parent emotion socialization in the context of parent-child and sibling conflict in naturalistic settings. Family Relations.

Ravindran, N., Prather, K., & Carvalho, C. (manuscript under review). Maternal distress reactivity predicts maternal responses to children’s negative emotions in naturalistic settings. Journal of Family Psychology.