From social media pressures on parents to the long-term health impacts of maternal stress and diabetes during pregnancy, the Buffett Early Childhood Institute’s Graduate Scholars are tackling some of today’s most pressing early childhood issues.
At the Institute’s 2025-26 Graduate Scholars Showcase, held at the University of Nebraska Medical Center Davis Global Center on April 29, Scholars presented the preliminary findings of their Institute-funded research projects.
Attendees included Buffett Institute staff members, University of Nebraska faculty and students, and Scholars’ friends and family.
The 2025-26 Scholars are:
- Colman Freel, an M.D./Ph.D. student in the Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology at UNMC. His mentors are Dr. Ann Anderson Berry and Paras Kumar Mishra.
- He studies how diabetes during pregnancy impacts the long-term risk for cardiovascular diseases in offspring. Evidence suggests that programming of cardiovascular risk begins in the womb and may involve dysfunction of the fetal vascular endothelium, which forms the inner layer of all blood vessels and plays a vital role in controlling blood pressure.
- Rebekah Rapoza, an M.D./Ph.D. student in the Department of Pediatrics at UNMC. Her mentor is also Anderson Berry.
- Her project examines how maternal stressors—such as low food security or an income below the federal poverty level—can affect pregnancy and long-term maternal and infant health. She focused on how these stressors can change how certain key genes involved in metabolism are regulated.
- Ali Shull, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Educational Psychology at UNL. Her mentor is Carrie Clark.
- Shull researched how parenting content on social media influences parents' stress levels and their sense of parenting self-efficacy. Parents are exposed to a constant stream of advice and highly curated portrayals of family life, which can create pressure to meet unrealistic standards.
Since 2016, the Buffett Institute has invested $750,000 through its Graduate Scholars program to support the early childhood-related research of Ph.D. students from University of Nebraska campuses related to early childhood education and development.
The program awards one-year fellowships worth up to $25,000 to a maximum of four NU doctoral students every year.
“This program is one of the ways we’re building the next generation of researchers,” said Buffett Institute Executive Director Walter Gilliam at the showcase.
Fifteen Ph.D. students—a new record—applied for the 2026-27 Graduate Scholars cohort. All applicants will be notified by the end of June.
Scholars have said the program has honed their research skills and grown their professional network.
“The financial support and access to valuable resources provided by the Graduate Scholars program have allowed me to ask deeper and more nuanced research questions,” Rapoza said.
Erin Duffy is the managing editor at the Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska and writes about early childhood issues that affect children, families, educators, and communities. Previously, she spent more than a decade covering education stories and more for daily newspapers.
