Research

Our faculty conduct both basic and applied research with diverse groups of child, adolescent, college student, community adult, elderly, and medical populations. Research interests of the faculty include the impact of stereotyping on caregiver-infant interactions, patient-physician interactions, and adolescents with cancer; the prevention of HIV, teen pregnancy, and other risk behaviors in African American and Latino youth and other populations; socialization of coping and communication patterns in families with a parent who is HIV-positive; familial factors in mitigating or enhancing youths’ risk for negative outcomes of stress; drug dependence in college students and other adults; facilitating the psychological adaptation of older adults to chronic medical illness and disability; and the role of mindfulness in mental and physical health. For detailed information about each faculty member’s research programs, please visit the Health Psychology faculty page of this web site.

The Health Psychology graduate program stresses research training above all other goals. From entry into the program until graduation, students work with faculty on empirical research projects. Moreover, as full members of the research community, students publish research in peer-reviewed journals, make presentations at regional, national, and international conferences, and in general are acculturated into the world of psychological science research on the way to developing a professional identity as health psychologists.