The MCTFR's Longitudinal Staff
Since the late 1980's the Minnesota Center for Twin and Family Research (MCTFR) has collected data on over 1,880 sets of twins and their families, almost 7,500 individuals. This data includes interviews, surveys, behavioral tasks, reports from parents and teachers, psychophysiological data, brain scans and terabytes of multimedia pictures, videos, and audio recordings. These hefty batteries of tests were performed at multiple life-stages over the past decades. All told, the MCTFR has one of the most complete and extensive longitudinal datasets on twins and their families in existence today. And the work is ongoing.
The longitudinal success of the MCTFR is attributable in large part to the highly-qualified, loyal staff of recruiters, data managers, interviewers, and neurotechs. While almost 1,000 people have worked at the MCTFR over the years, several staff have stayed the course including Linda Springer, Michele Friedmann, Tasha Walvig, and Micah Hammer, whose expertise, attention to detail and friendliness have contributed much to the success of the MCTFR.
In 1994 Linda Springer began working as the supervisor of data management at what was then known as the Minnesota Twin Family Study (MTFS). The MTFS began in 1987 under the leadership of Professors David Lykken, William Iacono, and Matt MCGue and Director Kevin Haroian. Prior to the MTFS Linda had worked at the St. Paul Campus Computing Center where data entry meant translating text into punch cards and feeding the cards into the mainframe. As the technology aged and the Center closed, Linda applied at the MTFS with little knowledge of its growing reputation, but ready to take on the complexity of data management involved in the establishment of a complex, longitudinal study. Linda was in charge of keeping track of the twins and their families as they grew into adulthood, entering and verifying data from interviews and self-reports, and supervising hundreds of student workers who entered the data collected.
In 2017 Linda transitioned to a part-time role in the MCTFR. In answer to why she stayed those many years, Linda talked of respecting the researchers, and appreciating the many staff people she worked with, including student workers. Linda saw her work as contributing to the greater good by growing our understanding of human behavior. Linda remains committed to ensuring that the data that has been gathered can be used by future researchers and consumers.
In 1994 Micah Hammer was a UMN Honors Program student in Psychology. One afternoon, in one of his classes, Professor Iacono presented on the research being done in the MCTFR. Hammer was intrigued. Soon thereafter, Hammer went to work for Joanna Katsanis, an MCTFR PhD student, processing psychophysiological data for her research with participants who had schizophrenia. Hammer was later hired full-time to process and analyze EEG data alongside Steve Malone, a Research Professor in the MCTFR. In 2008 Hammer took on other tasks, including data collection, collecting blood samples and running participants through fMRI scans. Hammer also worked with Jennifer Donnelly, a fellow MCTFR staff member, whom he credits for teaching him all about collecting psychophysiological data. He also noted that Donnelly was a great colleague.
Hammer is now the Principal NeuroHealth Technician responsible for collecting psychophysiological data for the multiple studies being run by the MCTFR. He attributes his staying-power at the MCTFR to many of the great people who have come and gone through the center. He has made multiple life-long friends and worked with amazing research assistants. Hammer appreciates working around smart researchers and reasonable people who can solve problems, and he appreciates being valued for his work and commitment.
Tasha Walvig joined the MCTFR in 2002 as a 'structured clinical junior interviewer'. While working on her masters degree in social work, Walvig learned of the MCTFR. Since she was also interested in research in Psychology, Walvig applied and was hired. She praised her first supervisor, Irene Elkins, a research associate in charge of the interviewers, who was patient, knowledgeable and wrote "emails that were like literature." Walvig has since interviewed hundreds of participants, parents, and guardians, asking extensive questions about their personalities and behaviors. She sees herself as a good listener and she enjoys hearing participants tell stories about their lives, thereby forming connections with them over the years.
Walvig went on to earn her PhD in social work and she has continued to work at the MCTFR. She has appreciated the respect shown to her by the researchers and the flexibility of the position that has allowed her to raise two daughters while continuing her interview work nights and weekends. Walvig attributes her commitment to the MCTFR to her respect for her colleagues and her enjoyment of the participants, with a particular shoutout of all of the cute pictures of twins in their matching MCTFR t-shirts.
In the early 1990's the initial MTFS cohort was expanded to include females and Michele Friedmann was hired by Irene Elkins to begin interviewing female twins in 1993. Friedmann worked as an interviewer until 1995 when she became licensed as a psychologist and provided therapy at Hamline University. Yet, Friedmann kept in touch with the friends and colleagues she had made at the MCTFR and returned in 2007. Friedmann is now an interviewer with HBCD - the HEALthy Brain and Child Development study - the largest, long-term study of early brain development in the U.S. The MCTFR is one site among many across the nation enrolling 7000 families to participate in HBCD.
Friedmann is honored to work with HBCD families. HBCD asks parents to bring in their infants 4 times over the first 15 months of life for a variety of tests including fMRIs, EEG, and video of mother-child interactions. The visits can be intense for all involved and staff must ensure that the family is well-treated while also gathering the data needed for a successful study. Like her colleagues, Friedmann appreciates working with dedicated people who care about their work, who value excellence and being ethical. Friedmann has appreciated the work-life balance she has found with the MCTFR and, as always, the work is interesting.
These 4 staff, and many others, now lead a wide array of MCTFR research projects, all of which are designed to be longitudinal, methodologically robust and involving multiple institutions across the country. Currently, MCTFR studies include the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) and HBCD national consortium studies; the COMN and COMN PATHS projects, which partner with the University of Colorado-Boulder to investigate the effects of legalized recreational marijuana use; the Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study (SIBS), which studies health and relationships in adoptive and non-adoptive families; the Social Inequality Study, which analyzes data from the ABCD study to determine the effects of socioeconomic disadvantage on brain development; and the Minnesota Multi-Ethnic Twin Registry (MTR), which partnered with the Carolina African America Twin Study of Aging (CAATSA) to study cognitive and physical health in older twins. And, with the establishment of the Infant Twin Registry (ITR) over the last few years, the MCTFR has expanded to become a lifespan center. These staff are well-positioned to aid the MCTFR in successfully bridging past, present, and future across these studies, and the Center truly is all the better for their dedication and effort.