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Jennifer M. Grossman, Ph.D., is a senior research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) and a former National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) postdoctoral research fellow at WCW. Her research uses quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate adolescent development, sexual health, and risk-taking, with an emphasis on family communication about sex and relationships, and contexts of teens’ environment and identities, such as gender, race, and ethnicity. Grossman initially joined WCW in August 2006 as a NICHD postdoctoral research fellow. She received her B.A. from Oberlin College, her M.A. in counseling at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Boston College in 2005. In addition to her research work, Grossman is a licensed psychologist. She completed her clinical internship and postdoctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital, working primarily with children and adolescents. Her clinical experiences inform her research work and enhance her commitment to addressing health inequities through research, program development, and systemic change in support of healthy youth development. Grossman is currently principal investigator of an R21 award from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development -- Adolescent Communication with Family and Reproductive Health, which includes the first comprehensive assessment of teens’ sexuality communication with extended family and its associations with sexual behavior as well as an exploration of extended family approaches to talking with teens about sex. Grossman is also principal investigator of an R03 award from the National Institutes of Child and Human Development -- Risk Behaviors Among Offspring of Teen Parents: Effects of Parenting on the Next Generation, which addresses the potential of maternal and paternal parenting to reduce the high risk of early sex and teen pregnancy for offspring of teen parents. She recently completed a project funded by Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts (PPLM) – the Formative Evaluation of Planned Parenthood Family Communication App, which assessed the preliminary effectiveness of a mobile website for parents of youth enrolled in PPLM’s middle school curriculum, Get Real: Comprehensive Sex Education That Works. Findings showed that parents and teens reported significantly more talk with teens about relationships and sexuality after exposure to Get Real family activities than before participating in the program. Parents described the online activities as useful in talking with their teens about sexuality and relationships and found the activities helped bring up new conversation topics about teens’ health. Grossman’s current research focuses on adolescent sexual risk and prevention, evaluation of preventive programs, teens’ communication with parents and extended family about sex and relationships, and how that communication influences teen sexual attitudes and behavior.

Elizabeth Cauffman is a Professor in the Department of Psychological Science in the School of Social Ecology and holds courtesy appointments in the School of Education and the School of Law. Dr. Cauffman received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Temple University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Center on Adolescence at Stanford University. At the broadest level, Dr. Cauffman’s research addresses the intersect between adolescent development and juvenile justice. She has published over 100 articles, chapters, and books on a range of topics in the study of contemporary adolescence, including adolescent brain development, risk-taking and decision-making, parent-adolescent relationships, and juvenile justice. Findings from Dr. Cauffman’s research were incorporated into the American Psychological Association’s amicus briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons, which abolished the juvenile death penalty, and in both Graham v. Florida and Miller v. Alabama, which placed limits on the use of life without parole as a sentence for juveniles. As part of her larger efforts to help research inform practice and policy, she served as a member of the MacArthur Foundation’s Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice as well as the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on the Neurobiological and Socio-behavioral Science of Adolescent Development and Its Applications. Dr. Cauffman currently directs the Center for Psychology & Law (http://psychlaw.soceco.uci.edu/) as well as the Masters in Legal & Forensic Psychology program (https://mlfp.soceco.uci.edu/) at UCI. To learn more about her research, please visit her Development, Disorder, and Delinquency lab website.