Assistant Professor Hsiu-Fen Lin in the School of Social Work has received a competitive three-year Mentored Research Scientist Development Award in the amount of $340,000 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The career development award supports promising early-career investigators working to address public health challenges, including violence prevention.
With one in four U.S. children exposed to parental intimate partner violence (IPV) and nearly half of child homicides due to firearms, U.S. children face a significantly increased risk of fatal harm associated with both parental IPV and firearm access. Research has shown that up to 20% of child homicides ages 2-14 are linked to parental IPV.
The grant finds Lin’s project entitled: “A comprehensive strain-based approach to examine intimate partner violence-related firearm homicides of children as corollary victims.” Lin, who is also a member of UCF’s Violence Against Women Faculty Cluster, seeks to advance scientific understanding of how parental IPV contributes to child firearm homicide.
Lin will serve as the sole principal investigator in identifying child-specific firearm-related IPV risk factors, applying advanced homicide data analysis, and developing measurable, practice-ready risk assessment items aimed at reducing firearm-related child deaths and strengthening crosscutting violence prevention strategies.
Through the award, Lin will receive intensive, interdisciplinary mentorship from four distinguished experts at UCF, Arizona State University, Johns Hopkins University, and American University. The award builds on her postdoctoral work and positions her to become a leading scholar in violence prevention.
