Molly Kretchmar-Hendricks

Molly D. Kretchmar-Hendricks, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington, where she currently serves as the Associate Dean for Curriculum and Assessment in the College of Arts & Sciences. She received her Ph.D. in Child Development and Family Relationships from the University of Texas, Austin in 1995, where she focused on parent-infant attachment and the intergenerational transmission of parenting. She completed advanced training in parent-infant attachment, including earning certification on the Ainsworth Strange Situation Procedure and coding system. She teaches courses in developmental psychology, risk and resilience, and attachment theory and has received several awards, including Teacher of the Year and Service-Learning Faculty of the Year. Her research emphasizes attachment-based interventions with at-risk parent-child dyads and with children in foster care. Dr. Kretchmar was one of the original research affiliates on the Circle of Security project. She has published academic articles in Family Process, Development and Psychopathology, Attachment & Human Development, and Zero to Three, and has presented at multiple conferences including the Society for Research in Child Development, the National Foster Parent Association, and the 2009 Zero to Three National Training Institute. Her book, co-authored with foster parent, Janet Mann, entitled Creating Compassionate Foster Care: Lessons of Hope from Children and Families in Crisis, was released in 2017.