Dr. E. Mark Cummings is the William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families Professor of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame, and previously was the Notre Dame Endowed Chair in Psychology. Dr. Cummings' work focuses on relations between adaptive and maladaptive family processes and development. He is interested in relations between family and community contexts and children's development between early childhood and later adolescence, guided by the Emotional Security Theory. A recent direction is the development and testing of prevention programs designed to improve family functioning, especially the quality of interparental and parent-child relationships, and children's adjustment and well-being in high-risk US samples and international samples of families exposed to community violence.