Educator to executive

It was about three years ago when University of Delaware Professor Mary Dozier began thinking about her global legacy - what would become of her ABC program when she retired? No, she is not retiring, at least not yet. But she has been working to transform herself.

Dozier, Unidel Amy Elizabeth du Pont Chair in Child Development in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, is known for creating the Attachment and Behavioral Catch-up (ABC) program to help parents and primary caregivers develop nurturing bonds with children who have experienced adversity through separation, international adoption or trauma.

She's been a UD professor for over 30 years, during which time she has mentored 30 graduate students. Each year, an additional 30-plus undergraduates have helped collect data and served as research assistants in the Dozier lab - which has received $30 million in research funding over that time period.

They say good things come in threes, and for Dozier, that includes multiples of three.

Today, Dozier's work impacts about 3,000 families annually. It's a number she wants to expand over the next decade, hopefully tenfold. You read that right - 30,000 families. That's the target, and the reason Dozier translated her UD research program into a nonprofit organization called the ABC Parenting Institute to scale her efforts for the benefit of families.