Rachel Farr

Email: rachel.farr@uky.edu
Phone: (859) 257-4393
Website: https://psychology.as.uky.edu/users/rhfa223

Dr. Rachel H. Farr is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Kentucky (UK). She received her Ph.D. in Developmental and Community Psychology from the University of Virginia and was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Farr’s research focuses on diverse families, particularly those with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) parents and formed through adoption. For over 15 years, she has conducted a large longitudinal study about how parental sexual orientation relates to child, parent, and family outcomes among diverse adoptive families across the United States. Farr also has interest in how issues of race (e.g., transracial adoption), gender, and birth family contact are relevant in adoptive families. With support from the William T. Grant Foundation, Farr is currently examining the lived experiences of racially and socioeconomically diverse adolescents with LGBTQ+ parents, particularly as related to identity, discrimination, coping, peer and family relationships, and community supports. Her work has been published in top-tier developmental psychology journals, such as Child Development and Developmental Psychology, and has garnered national media attention (e.g., the New York Times, Huffington Post, Washington Post, and National Public Radio). Farr’s findings are relevant to policy, practice, and law surrounding ongoing controversy about LGBTQ+ parenting and adoption; they have been cited in numerous amicus briefs for U.S. Supreme Court cases. Farr serves on her local county school’s LGBTQ+ advisory committee and in multiple leadership roles in professional organizations and at UK, especially as regarding diversity and inclusion efforts.