Jennie’s concept of what it means to be “boundless” is tied to the fact that each year, one of every seven children in the US is abused or neglected, contributing to large-scale mental and physical health disparities that are transmitted across generations. So, to her, one of the many manifestations of boundlessness is doing what needs to be done to stop grave atrocities before they occur and protect children from abuse and exploitation.

For decades, Jennie has conducted basic and interventional research in the field of child abuse and neglect. Her newest paper—currently in press for JAMA Pediatrics—reports on the effectiveness of a community-wide preventive intervention that significantly lowered the rates of child abuse in five US counties. This kind of work led to her role as executive director of Mt. Hope Family Center (MHFC), whose work closely aligns with Boundless Possibility’s research goal, specifically areas of distinction such as Just and Equitable Societies and Biomedical and Health Care Innovation.

The MHFC is leveraging sustained access to diverse, at-risk populations to develop new transdisciplinary scholarship that yields novel interventions and personalized approaches to reducing health disparities for underserved, stress-exposed children and families. “We’re helping to enhance the University of Rochester’s reputation in its own backyard,” Jennie says. “By breaking down the barriers to evidence-based mental health and advocacy services for thousands of at-risk families each year, we’re promoting goodwill and building bridges to make the Greater Rochester community safer and healthier. And we’re doing this by giving those traditionally left out of cutting-edge research an opportunity to benefit from and help shape scientific discovery in ways that will ultimately inform public policy.”