Krista Payne is a doctoral candidate in the areas of the family and social psychology. Her primary research interests are in the areas of emerging adulthood, economies of the family, and marriage from a life-course perspective paying particular attention to the mediating roles of micro and macro factors in individuals’ outcomes. Current projects include an examination of micro and macro influences on marital timing and the effect of marital timing on the trajectory of individuals’ earnings; an examination of how childhood family structure and parental hardship influences young adults’ financial contributions to their parents’ households; an examination of adoptees propensity to adopt; and, an examination of how adoption status effects individual characteristics throughout the young adult years. A former recipient of the National Center for Family and Marriage Research (NCFMR) dissertation fellowship, Krista continues to work for the NCFMR as a research assistant.