Deepti Agarwal is a doctoral student in Health Behavior and Health Education in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Education, at The University of Texas at Austin. Ms. Agarwal earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in English Literature from The University of Delhi. Her involvement with Teach India and The World Health Organization in India inspired her to pursue a career in improving the health outcomes of disparate populations. Thereafter, she earned an MSSW in social work from The University of Texas at Austin before entering the PhD program in Health Behavior and Health Education. Her research interests and goals are to decrease risky health behavior, particularly tobacco use among young adults.
James R. Ashenhurst contributed his chapter while he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. After completing a bachelor's degree in Psychology from Princeton University, he received his PhD in Neuroscience from the University of California, Los Angeles. His dissertation work focused on direct translational (both animal and human) research on decision-making and genetics in the context of alcohol dependence. His areas of interest include pharmacogenetics, impulsivity, behavior genetics, personality, and the neuroscience of substance use disorders and motivated behavior. He is currently a Product Scientist at 23andMe, Inc. in Mountain View, California, where he is helping to make FDA-approved direct-to-consumer genomic interpretation a reality.
Guadalupe A. Bacio is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Intercollegiate Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies at Pomona College. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a member of the Research Society on Alcoholism, the Society for Prevention Research, and the National Hispanic Network on Drug Abuse. Dr. Bacio currently directs the Cultural contExts, adolesceNt healTh behavioRs, & develOpment (CENTRO) Research Lab at Pomona College. The overarching goal of her program of research is to help eliminate disparities in patterns and consequences of alcohol and drug use encountered by ethnic minority adolescents of different immigrant generations. To this end, her research focuses on (1) understanding factors in the etiology and development of alcohol and drug use among these groups, (2) identifying mechanisms that generate and maintain these disparities that can be targeted through prevention/intervention efforts, and (3) examining the effectiveness of adolescent alcohol intervention programs in addressing these groups' needs.
Kelly Birch is an undergraduate honors student at the University of San Diego studying Behavioral Neuroscience and Chemistry. After graduation she will pursue a doctorate in Clinical Psychology with a concentration in Neuropsychology. She hopes to eventually work in the assessment and treatment of traumatic brain injury.
Sandra A. Brown is Vice Chancellor for Research and a Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego. She is internationally recognized for her developmentally focused alcohol and drug intervention research. Her primary research focuses on the impact of alcohol and other drugs on human development and clinical course for substance abuse factors influencing transitions out of alcohol and drug problems. Dr. Brown's research yielded pioneering information on adolescent addiction, relapse among youth, and long term outcomes of youth who have experienced alcohol and drug problems. She is the past President of Division 50 (Addictions) of the American Psychological Association, is on the executive board of numerous scientific organizations, and has over 35 grants and 350 publications. She is involved in addiction prevention and intervention at the regional, state, and national levels and helped lead NIAAA's effort to establish national screening and early intervention guidelines for youth. She currently directs the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA).
Ty Brumback is an Addictions Fellow at the VA San Diego Healthcare system and in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California San Diego. His research examines the relationships among neurocognition, brain function, and risky behaviors, specifically alcohol and other drug use, in adolescents and young adults. He received his Ph.D in clinical psychology from the University of South Florida in 2013.
Anne Buu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Indiana University-Bloomington. She is a biostatistician and a developmental psychologist. She received a Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Florida and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the Indiana University-Bloomington. Before joining the faculty of Indiana University, she was a research faculty member at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Her research interests include longitudinal data analysis, health communication, bioinformatics, and substance abuse prevention. She is the recipient of a Research Scientist Development Award from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. She is the Principal Investigator of two five-year methodology projects funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She has also served as a study statistician for several longitudinal projects funded by the NIH such as the Michigan Longitudinal Study and the Flint Adolescent Study.
Laurie Chassin is Regents Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University in Tempe. Her research interests are in the developmental psychopathology and intergenerational transmission of substance use disorders and in life course trajectories and etiological processes underlying cigarette smoking. She is a principal investigator of NIH-funded longitudinal studies of cigarette smoking and alcohol use. She received a PhD in clinical psychology from Teachers College Columbia University and post-doctoral training in sociology and mental health from Indiana University, Bloomington, and a BA in psychology from Brown University
Dante Cicchetti is McKnight Presidential Chair and William Harris Professor of Child Psychology at the University of Minnesota (2005-Present). After receiving his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and Child Development from the University of Minnesota in 1977, Cicchetti joined the faculty at Harvard University where he was subsequently Assistant Professor (1977-1982) and Norman Tishman Associate Professor of Psychology and Social Relations (1983-1985). In 1985, Dante moved to the University of Rochester, where he served as the Director of Mt. Hope Family Center for 20 years. He has published over 500 articles, books, and journal Special Issues that have had far-reaching impact on developmental theory as well as on science, policy, and practice related to developmental psychopathology, child maltreatment, depression and developmental disabilities, as well as numerous domains of normal development. Dante founded the journal Development and Psychopathology and is in his 27th year as Editor. Dante has received four honors from the Developmental Division of the APA: the Boyd McCandless Award, the G. Stanley Hall Award; the Urie Bronfenbrenner Award, and the Mentor Award in Developmental Psychology. He was honored with the Society for Research in Child Development's Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Child Development Award and the AAAS Fellow Award by The American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dante is the recipient of the 2012 Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize and received the 2014 James Cattell Award from the Association for Psychological Science.
James A. Cranford is a Research Assistant Professor in the Addiction Research Center at the University of Michigan. He received his Ph.D. in Social and Personality Psychology from the University at Albany, State University of New York, and completed postdoctoral fellowships in the Department of Psychology at New York University and in the Addiction Research Center at the University of Michigan. He is a member of the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Research Society on Alcoholism. His research focuses on 1) the marital and family context of substance use and substance use disorders; 2) mechanisms of behavior change in substance use disorders; and 3) application of intensive longitudinal methods to studies of stress, social interaction, and substance use.
Rina D. Eiden is a Senior Research Scientist at the Research Institute on Addictions, State University of New York at Buffalo, and Adjunct Faculty in the departments of Pediatrics and Psychology. She has been conducting research with families who have been impacted by parental substance abuse over two decades, using prospective designs beginning in pregnancy or early infancy. The goal of these studies broadly has been to examine when, and under what circumstances do children of substance using parents exhibit patterns of maladjustment; what factors lead to resilience in the context of high parental and comorbid family risks; and ideal timing of preventive interventions with these families. Dr. Eiden received her Ph.D. in Applied Developmental Psychology from the University of Maryland in 1992 and completed a post-doctoral fellowship on children of substance using parents at the Research Institute on Addictions.
John E. Donovan is Professor of Psychiatry and Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh. He received his doctorate in personality and social psychology in 1977 from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He stayed on there as a Research Associate from 1977 to 1992 working with Dr. Richard Jessor on studies testing and expanding Problem Behavior Theory in community, state, and national samples of adolescents and young adults. In 1992 he was recruited by the University of Pittsburgh to serve as Scientific Director of the Pittsburgh Adolescent Alcohol Research Center until 1997. Since 2000, he has directed the Tween to Teen Project, a 16-wave longitudinal study of 8 and 10 year olds and their families to ages 21-23 that has focused on describing the developmental course of involvement with alcohol, examining the antecedent risk factors for the initiation and escalation of drinking and problem drinking, and determining the young adult outcomes of early alcohol involvement.
Catharine Fairbairn is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She graduated in 2015 from the University of Pittsburgh with a Ph.D. in Clinical/Health psychology and completed her clinical internship at the Ann Arbor VA. In addition to her training at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Fairbairn has conducted research at Columbia's New York State Psychiatric Institute, the University of Pennsylvania's Treatment Research Center, and has completed a fellowship in quantitative methods in the University of Oslo's Department of Biostatistics. She is a recipient of the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship, the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide Grant, and received the Society for the Science of Clinical Psychology's Outstanding Student Researcher Award. Her research focuses on alcohol's rewarding effects within the context of social interaction with the aim of understanding the basic social processes that might underlie alcohol use disorder.
Kim Fromme is a Professor of Clinical Psychology at The University of Texas at Austin, where she has been on faculty since 1993. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Washington and completed her internship at the Palo Alto VA Medical Center before taking her first faculty position at the University of Delaware. Dr. Fromme's program of research is based on a broad conceptual model that includes individual, social, environmental, and developmental factors in an effort to understand and prevent alcohol abuse and other behavioral risks. Using survey research, experimental designs, and randomized clinical trials, her research has identified critical etiological factors which may then be effectively changed to prevent hazardous drinking patterns and their negative consequences. Dr. Fromme's current research combines 10 years of longitudinal behavioral data with genetic analyses to examine the mechanisms through which genetic and environmental factors influence changes in alcohol use and other externalizing behaviors during emerging adulthood.
Sarah Harrison is an undergraduate honors student in Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of San Diego. Following graduation she will pursue graduate training in neuroscience research focusing on the military veterans' community. She hopes to engage in advanced studies on neurodegenerative diseases and the interaction between neuroscience and genetics.
Maleeha Haroon is a doctoral candidate in the Clinical Psychology program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to her arrival at UNC, Maleeha received her B.S. in Human Development from Cornell University and completed a two-year post-baccalaureate research fellowship at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Her research interests concern the developmental processes underlying individual trajectories of substance use and abuse. More specifically, Maleeha is currently examining how early experience with drug use may change cognitions about use, and how these changes may influence future patterns of use. Further, she would like to explore how environmental contexts such as the peer group may moderate the effects of these early experiences on cognitions about use. In the future, Maleeha would like to explore how the results of such research could inform intervention efforts targeting adolescent cognitions about drug use as well as risk behaviors more broadly.
Mary M. Heitzeg is Assistant Professor in the Substance Abuse Section of the Department of Psychiatry and the Addiction Research Center at the University of Michigan. She received her PhD in Biological Psychology from the University of Michigan and completed her postdoctoral training in the Addiction Research Center. Dr. Heitzeg's primary research focus is on developmental neuroimaging targeted at investigating genetic and behavioral risk factors for substance abuse. She has developed a program of research using longitudinal neuroimaging to investigate two related themes relevant to adolescent substance use: 1) how early individual differences in brain function relate to susceptibility to alcohol and other drug problems; and 2) the effects of substance use on the developing brain and how this impacts risk trajectories. She incorporates genetic information into these analyses, whereby systems-level syntheses can be accomplished by examining relationships across genetics, neural circuitry and behavior.
Brian M. Hicks is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan. The focus of his research has been to examine the interplay among genetic, environmental, and developmental influences on substance use, antisocial behavior and psychopathy, and personality. His work is supported by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Dr. Hicks' research has also been recognized with early career contribution awards from the Behavior Genetics Association, the Society for Research in Psychopathology, and the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy, and by a Research Faculty Award from the University of Michigan.
Andrea Hussong directs the Center for Developmental Science and is a professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to joining the faculty, she completed a Bachelor of Arts at Indiana University, a doctorate at Arizona State University, and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Developmental Science at UNC-CH. Her research primarily concerns the developmental processes underlying substance use and later addiction, particularly among children of alcoholic parents. This work includes the study of an internalizing pathway to substance use and disorder posited to emerge over the first three decades of life and to encompass risk for substance use associated with a core deficit in emotion regulation. She pairs this substantive work with an interest in advanced developmental methodology and co-developed Integrative Data Analysis as a means to study developmental processes by combining multiple independent studies in a single analysis.
Michael Ichiyama is chair of the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of San Diego. After receiving his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Cincinnati, he served as a research fellow in the Department of Psychiatry Alcohol Research Center at the University of Michigan from 1993-95 where he worked under the mentorship of Dr. Robert Zucker. Ichiyama's research has focused on the investigation of risk factors related to heavy drinking and alcohol-related problems among university students and the study of social and cultural influences on the self-concept. He was the principal investigator on an NIH-NIAAA research grant, "University of San Diego Freshmen Research Initiative", that evaluated a parent-based intervention for the prevention of problem drinking in matriculating college freshmen. Ichiyama's peer-reviewed work has appeared in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology Quarterly, and the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.
Justin Jager is an assistant professor within the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University. While focusing primarily on family, peer, as well as historical contexts, his research is devoted to unpacking how complex person-context interactions inform development across adolescence and the transition to adulthood. In terms of developmental outcomes, his research focuses primarily on substance use, risky behavior, mental health, and academic achievement. He received his doctorate in developmental psychology from the University of Michigan, post-doctoral training within the Intramural Research Program of the NIH, NICHD, and a BA in psychology from Calvin College.
Ash Levitt is a Senior Research Scientist at the Research Institute on Addictions at the University at Buffalo. He received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Missouri in 2010 and postdoctoral training at RIA. His research primarily focuses on the antecedents and consequences of alcohol use processes in romantic relationships. In particular, Dr. Levitt examines relationship-specific factors that can help explain when, how, and for whom relationship alcohol use might be adaptive or maladaptive. These factors include relationship-specific drinking contexts (e.g., drinking with one's partner), alcohol expectancies (e.g., intimacy enhancement), and drinking motives (e.g., to cope with a stressful relationship problem). Dr. Levitt's most current research examines motivational factors surrounding momentary alcohol use processes in romantic relationships.
Runze Li is Verne M. Willaman Professor of Statistics at The Pennsylvania State University. His statistical expertise includes analysis of intensive longitudinal data; variable selection for high-dimensional data; feature screening for ultrahigh-dimensional data. He has built strong and productive collaborations with several more applied scientists and has guided the application of his methods to data on drug abuse. He has published more than 100 papers in the finest statistical methodological and theoretical journals including Journal of American Statistical Association (JASA) and Annals of Statistics (AOS) and top-tier journals in disciplines beyond statistics, such as Psychological Methods, Drug and Alcohol Dependence, Nicotine and Tobacco Research. He was the recipient of an NSF Career Award in 2004. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. He serves as co-editor of AOS since 2013 and associate editor of the JASA since 2006.
Kenneth Leonard is the Director of the Research Institute on Addictions and Research Professor in Psychiatry at the University at Buffalo Medical School. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Kent State University in 1981, and postdoctoral training in psychiatric/alcohol epidemiology at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic at the University of Pittsburgh. He is a Fellow in Divisions 50 (Addictions) and 28 (Psychopharmacology and Substance Abuse) in the American Psychological Association, and is a former President of Division 50. Dr. Leonard's research interests have been centered on the interpersonal and familial influences on substance abuse, as well as the influence of substance abuse on interpersonal and family processes. He is internationally recognized for his research on substance abuse and intimate partner violence, but has also studied the impact of alcoholism on child development and the role of marital/family processes in the prevention and treatment of substance abuse.
Alexandra Loukas is the Barbie M. and Gary L. Coleman Professor in Education in the Department and Kinesiology and Health Education at the University of Texas at Austin. She earned a PhD in Developmental Psychology from Michigan State University in 1997, under the mentorship of Hiram E. Fitzgerald and Robert A. Zucker. The focus of Dr. Loukas' research is on adolescent and young adult health, particularly problem behavior development and tobacco use and cessation. She has a special interest in examining how factors from multiple ecological levels (e.g., family, school, culture) interact to protect adolescents and young adults from negative health outcomes.
Jonathan T. Macy is an Assistant Professor of Applied Health Science in the School of Public Health at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. His research interests include tobacco control policy, smoking cessation, adolescent smoking prevention, and implicit attitudes toward smoking. He is principal investigator on a study testing contingency management as a strategy to reduce smoking among pregnant women and co-investigator on an NIH-funded 35-year longitudinal study of smoking attitudes and behaviors. He received a PhD in health behavior from Indiana University, an MPH in international health from Emory University, and a BA in economics from DePauw University.
Julie Maslowsky is an Assistant Professor of Health Behavior and Health Education in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Education at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her PhD in developmental psychology at the University of Michigan and completed postdoctoral training in population health with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars. Her research focuses on the epidemiology and etiology of adolescent health behavior
Eun Young Mun joined the Center of Alcohol Studies, Rutgers University in 2006 after four years on the faculty of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She holds a joint appointment in the Department of Clinical Psychology, Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, and is a Graduate Faculty member in the Department of Psychology. She has researched developmental processes through which one's risk for the development of alcohol problems is maintained, intensified, or ameliorated throughout the life span using longitudinal, experimental, and intervention data. She is particularly interested in adolescents and young adults going through life transitions because these transitional points may provide better opportunities for change. In recent years, she has focused on (1) examining the magnitude and consistency of the intervention effect of brief motivational interventions for college students and (2) discovering subgroups via analyzing individual participant-level data from multiple studies in integrative analyses.
Joel Nigg directs the ADHD Program and the Division of Psychology and is a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland Oregon. Prior to joining the faculty there, he obtained a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of California at Berkeley and was Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University. His research examines the neuropsychological, physiological, cognitive, genetic, and neural contributors to the development of attention and impulsivity and their disorders, particularly as expressed in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD is a major risk factor for substance use disorders. He therefore also works on the role of executive functioning, temperament, personality, and self-regulation in risk for alcoholism and addiction, in collaboration with the UM-MSU Family Study. He has a particular interest in the intersection of cognitive and emotional regulation in developmental psychopathology.
Igor Ponomorev is an Assistant Professor at the Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research and the College of Pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin. His current research focuses on the interplay between genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors in controlling brain gene expression and behavioral abnormalities in models of alcohol use disorder. His lab applies systems approaches to data analysis to provide an integrated view of brain changes associated with alcohol-related neuroplasticity and neuropathology. He received his PhD in behavioral neuroscience from Oregon Health & Science University and postdoctoral training in molecular biology and bioinformatics from the University of Texas at Austin
Clark Presson is Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University in Tempe. His research interests include the development of spatial knowledge and reasoning, the use of spatial symbols, applications of cognitive development to child and adolescent health psychology, and processes of initiation of cigarette smoking. He is a principal investigator on an NIH-funded 35-year longitudinal study of smoking attitudes and behaviors. He received a PhD in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University Teachers College, and post-doctoral training in Clinical Psychology at Arizona State University, and a BA in psychology from Pomona College.
Anne Elizabeth Ray joined the Center of Alcohol Studies in 2011 after completing her Ph.D. in Biobehavioral Health at Penn State. Her research is broadly focused on the etiology and prevention of high-risk substance use among adolescent and emerging adult populations. She is particularly interested in the role of self-regulated drinking behaviors, actions that can be protective or risky in nature and capture a stylistic element of drinking (i.e., pacing drinks, setting limits, playing drinking games), in the experience of alcohol-related harm, and how prevention efforts can be improved through increased emphasis on these behaviors. She is actively involved in Project INTEGRATE, an integrative data analysis study that utilizes individual participant-level data from 24 brief motivational interventions (BMI) to reduce risky drinking in college student samples. Specifically, Dr. Ray has focused on the examination of variation in BMI content, and how differences in content are related to drinking outcomes. She is also involved in several program evaluation efforts within the Education & Training Division at CAS.
Fred Rogash is the Director of Research at Mt. Hope Family Center, a research and clinical institute at the University of Rochester, and an associate professor in the Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology at Rochester. He obtained a Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Michigan State University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in prevention science and child mental health at Arizona State University. Dr. Rogosch's research focuses on the area of developmental psychopathology, with a special emphasis on studying developmental processes from infancy into emerging adulthood in children exposed to adversity, particularly child maltreatment and early trauma, and maternal major depressive disorder. His research incorporates influences at multiple levels of psychological and biological analysis in understanding emergent psychopathology and maladaptation, as well as resilience, in chronically stressed children and families. Evaluation of early interventions to prevent maladaptive developmental trajectories in development also is a primary interest.
William (Drew) Rothenberg is a doctoral candidate in the Clinical Psychology Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to entering the Clinical Psychology program, Drew completed a Bachelor of Arts as a Roy H. Park Scholar at North Carolina State University. Drew's primary research interests concern the developmental processes which underlie continuity in maladaptive parenting and family conflict across generations. This work includes the identification of mediating pathways and contextual risk factors (such as familial substance misuse) which increase the likelihood that deleterious parenting and family environments persist across generations. Drew pairs these research interests with an interest in the development, implementation, and dissemination of evidence based interventions for families experiencing coercive cycles of conflict.
Gabriel L. Schlomer is an assistant professor in the Division of Educational Psychology and Methodology at the University at Albany, SUNY. He received his Ph.D. in Family Studies and Human Development from the University of Arizona where he gained expertise in evolutionary theoretical approaches to studying children and families. Following his Ph.D., Dr. Schlomer completed post-doctoral work at Penn State as part of both the Biobehavioral Health and Human Development and Family Studies departments where he gained additional training in molecular genetics and gene-by-environment interaction (GxE) research. His current research interests center on gene-environment interplay including gene-by-environment interactions, epigenetic modifications, and evaluating conditional adaptation. Dr. Schlomer's research centers on evaluating genetic and environmental effects, and their co-action, on externalizing behavior problems in adolescents, including substance use, aggression/delinquency, and risky sexual behavior.
John Schulenberg is Professor, Department of Psychology, and Research Professor, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. He has published widely on several topics concerning adolescence and the transition to adulthood, focusing on how developmental tasks and transitions relate to health risks and adjustment difficulties. His current research is on the etiology and epidemiology of substance use and psychopathology, focusing on risk factors, course, co-morbidity, and consequences during adolescence and the transition to adulthood. He is Co-PI of the NIDA-funded national Monitoring the Future study concerning substance use and psychosocial development across adolescence and adulthood. His work has been funded by NIDA, NIAAA, NICHD, NIMH, NSF, and RWJF. For these and other institutes and foundations (including Institute of Medicine), he has served on numerous advisory and review committees. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and President of the Society for Research on Adolescence.
Steven J. Sherman was trained as an experimental social psychologist. He received his PhD from the University of Michigan in 1967, working primarily with Robert Zajonc. Since then, he has been at Indiana University, where he is current Chancellor's Professor. Sherman has published empirical and theoretical papers in many areas of social/cognitive psychology. Among these areas are: the relations between attitudes and behavior; mispredictions of future behavior; effects of imagining and explaining the future; false consensus effect; a feature-matching model of preferences; counterfactual thinking; language and thinking; metaphors; psychology and the law. He has also applied his experience in experimental psychology to an understanding of an important real-world problem, cigarette smoking. For over 35 years, he was involved in the longest longitudinal study of the social psychological factors that help to understand smoking initiation and cessation.
Kenneth J. Sher is Curators' Distinguished Professor at the University of Missouri. He received his B.A. from Antioch College (1975) and his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Indiana University (1980). His research focuses on etiological processes in the development of alcohol dependence, factors that affect the course of drinking and alcohol use disorders across the lifespan, psychopharmacology of alcohol, and nosology. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), the Association for Psychological Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and his research contributions have been recognized by professional societies (e.g., Research Society on Alcoholism, APA), the National Institutes of Health, the University of Missouri, and Indiana University. He is currently associate editor of Clinical Psychological Science and Field Editor for Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research and has previously served as associate editor for Psychological Bulletin and the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.
Ruth K. Smith is a doctoral candidate in the Clinical Psychology program at UNC Chapel Hill. She completed a Bachelor of Science in Psychobiology at La Sierra University. Prior to her doctoral studies, Ms. Smith conducted longitudinal work as part of a research team at the University of Maryland College Park, where she investigated factors that contribute to adolescent engagement in risky sexual and drug use practices. Her research interests include risk and protective factors that contribute to youth resiliency and maladjustment. Specifically, her focus lies in examining the interplay between developmental transitions, life stressors, and familial influences that contribute to the development of emotion regulation, substance use, and other forms of psychopathology. Further, she has interest in investigating how advanced quantitative methods can improve the measurement of substance use and disorder and thus inform prevention programming within this line of research.
Kayla Swart is the laboratory manager for the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of San Diego. She received her undergraduate degree in Neuroscience from Davidson College. She plans to pursue graduate research training focusing on the areas of neuroplasticity and neuroprotection.
Elisa M. Trucco an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and an affiliate of the Center for Children and Families at Florida International University. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, her doctorate from the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, and completed her clinical internship at Yale University, School of Medicine. She also completed two post-doctoral T32 fellowships through the University of Michigan and is a licensed Clinical Psychologist in Michigan and Florida. Dr. Trucco's program of research is grounded in developmental psychopathology and social ecological perspectives. Her work involves delineating risk and protective factors for the development of adolescent problem behavior and substance use across multiple levels of analysis, including biological factors (genetics, neurobiology), social contexts (peers, parents, neighborhoods), and individual characteristics (temperament, personality). The aim of her programmatic work is to improve existing substance prevention programs for youth.
Annie Westcott is the Executive Assistant and Library Sciences Liaison for the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of San Diego. Following her bachelor's degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Southern Oregon University, she received her master's degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Washington.
Maria Wong is interested in examining risk and protective factors that affect important developmental outcomes such as substance use, suicidal behavior and resilience. Her current work focuses on understanding how sleep and self-regulation (control of affect, behavior and cognitive processes) affect health and behavior. She is the director of the Development and Resilience Lab in the Psychology Department at Idaho State University. Her research projects have been funded by the National Institute of Health. Her work was cited in articles published by National Public Radio, Time Magazine, BBC, CNN, NBC, Reuters and the Associated Press.
