Erin Hamel, of Athens, Georgia, is a student in human sciences in the Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her project will investigate the workplace support of non-contact time, a widely overlooked facet of early childhood teachers’ workday. Non-contact time involves a teacher’s time away from children that provides an opportunity to address work demands beyond the direct care of children. Teachers need adequate amounts of non-contact time to plan for quality instruction, assess children’s development, and communicate with families, among other things. Hamel’s project aims to contribute to our understanding of early childhood teacher work supports to inform policies to improve teachers’ job satisfaction—a critical problem for an undervalued profession plagued with high turnover and low pay.

Her faculty mentor is Dr. Rachel Schachter.