Our Research Initiatives
Youth Development and Resilience
The initiative takes three approaches to understanding, predicting, and preventing adolescent health risk: (1) investigation of family and relationship dynamics that affect and provide the contexts for adolescent decision-making or risk-taking, (2) investigation of psychobiological mechanisms involved in behavior in adolescence, (3) development and implementation of prevention/intervention strategies for youth who are marginalized or living in high-risk settings.
Early Relationship and Children's Development
This research initiative focuses on prevention, early intervention, risk and resilience in young children (ages birth to five) with particular attention to social-emotional well- being, positive parent-child relationships, as well as evidence-based early interventions for at-risk children and those with disabilities.
Latinx Families
The overall goal of this initiative is to further stimulate research that contributes to “Learning from Latinos”. This initiative supports collaborative work focused on methods and theory that can advance our understanding in the following four areas: (1) Healthy and positive development of Latino children and youth (2) Latino family contexts for parenting and socialization (3) Neighborhood and community contexts for development of Latino families (4) Health and educational paradoxes and disparities.