
Darby Saxbe
Associate Professor, University of Southern California
Email:
dsaxbe@usc.edu
Topics of Expertise:
Division of Labor in Families / Health & Illness / Parenthood: Motherhood/Fatherhood / Transition - Couples to Parenting
Website: https://dornsife.usc.edu/nestlab
Twitter: @DarbySaxbe
Dr. Saxbe studies how close family relationships get under the skin to affect stress and health. Her current work focuses on the transition to parenthood and follows couples from pregnancy into the first year postpartum. A related study examines the “fathering brain,” using neuroimaging to scan fathers both prenatally and postpartum. She has studied the transformative impact of new parenthood on the brain, body, and mind, as well as the enduring legacy of early family environments on child well-being. Dr. Saxbe has also examined physiological synchrony within families and has published multiple studies that find hormonal linkage within couples and parent-child dyads. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, and she received a Fulbright Fellowship to study the parenting brain in Spain in fall 2019.