Human Development
- Dr. Bolkan research focuses on healthy aging, family gerontology, grief, coping, and loss, and elder abuse.
- Dr. Cleveland’s research focuses on how to sustain recovery and prevent of relapse from alcohol and other substance use disorders. I am particularly interested in these processes among young adult populations.
Lisa Colón
- Dr. Cooper’s research, teaching, and outreach centers around the translation of prevention science for public health impact. For over a decade, she has collaborated with federal, state, and other community leaders to improve the field’s understanding of how best to support evidence-based prevention programs in diverse community settings. Visit lab website.
- Dr. Cooper is interested in development during emerging adulthood, specifically for college students.
- Dr. Diversi is interested decolonizing epistemologies, politics of interpretation and representation in the social sciences and the ethnography of street youth. Visit lab website.
- Dr. Duckworth’s research focuses on understanding the etiology and consequences of health risk behaviors and well-being among teens and young adults with a focus on understudied populations (e.g., members of racially or ethnically minoritized groups, LGBTQ+ youth, 2-year college students). I also develop, adapt, and evaluate prevention programming and interventions that aim to reduce negative health outcomes and increase well-being among young people. Visit lab website.
- Dr. Floyd is the Department Chair for Human Development. His research focuses on affectionate communication, psychophysiology/behavioral medicine, mental health, emotion, nonverbal behavior, and family communication.
- Dr. Handy is involved in research topics that include school violence, Family and Consumer Sciences teacher recruitment processes, and student success in distance education.
- Dr. Pendry’s research takes a biobehavioral perspective on examining the efficacy of animal assisted interventions in preventing stress on human and animal participants.
- Dr. Perone’s research focuses on contextual influences on brain, cognitive, and social-emotional development across childhood. He is especially interested in risk factors for psychopathology. Visit lab website.
- Child welfare system; Aging out of foster care; Developing, adapting, and testing interventions; Program evaluation; Maltreatment, trauma, and PTSD; LGBTQ youth well-being
- Dr. Sano’s research focuses on wellbeing of low-income families and rural health. Visit lab website.
Nicole Scalise
- Dr. Scalise’s research focuses on cognitive development of children from low-income households; development of numerical and executive functioning skills; play-based mathematics interventions; roles of family and early educators in children’s developing mathematics skills. Visit lab website.
Gitanjali Shrestha
- Dr. Shrestha’s research interests are practice-oriented translational research for implementing and evaluating prevention programs in community settings and for promoting behavioral health equity. Visit lab website.
- Dr. Waters’ research interests focus on the early development of self-regulation and preventive interventions to support the child-caregiver relationship. I am particularly interested in culturally grounded approaches to supporting children’s healthy development within close relationships.
- Dr. Weaver’s research centers around vulnerable and near-risk populations (e.g., older, low-income, rural-dwelling, insufficient care) and the adequacy of formal and informal long-term services and supports designed to promote health behaviors and deter adverse health outcomes in late life. She champions a lifespan perspective within prevention science and her research has a translational focus; she has established collaborative partnerships with community members and professional service providers, to provide data and recommendations that can better address care needs and health risks over time, helping community partners tailor and target their health services and supports. Visit lab website.
- Grounded in prevention science and systems theory, Dr. Weybright’s research focuses on adolescent health promotion and prevention. This spans a) basic research on topics such as youth behavior (e.g, rural youth firearm engagement) and leisure experiences (e.g., boredom, motives); b) dissemination, adaptation, and implementation of substance use prevention and positive youth development programs; and c) building capacity among professionals and systems for delivery of evidence-based approaches for health promotion and prevention. Visit website.
Communication
- Dr. Austin is dedicated to collaborative efforts that help people use media to make decisions best for themselves and to help their communities. Her research and outreach focuses on how media literacy can facilitate healthier decision making about health and civic affairs among youth, families, and adults. Visit website.
- Dr. Borah primarily studies discourses on digital platforms as well as message effects in the context of both politics and health. Borah’s most recent work focuses on problematic information including mis/disinformation. Visit website.
- Dr. O’Donnell specializes in media psychology and health promotion. Her primary research focuses on effective message design for health and environmental campaigns, with an interest in understanding how audiences engage with educational, inspiring, and entertaining campaign messages.
- Dr. Hust is nationally ranked by the Communication Institute for Online Scholarship for her health communication research focused on media and children, gender, conflict (sexual assault reduction), and substance abuse prevention. Her research identifies effective health communication messaging that can be used to reduce sexual assault and promote healthy sexual relationships among young people. She also investigates the media’s effects on youths’ romantic and sexual relationships.
Kinesiology & Education
- Dr. Adesope’s research is at the intersection of educational psychology, learning sciences, instructional design and technology. His recent research focuses on the cognitive and pedagogical underpinnings of learning with computer-based multimedia resources; knowledge representation through interactive concept maps & diagrams, meta-analysis of empirical research, evaluation of learning objects, and investigation of instructional principles and assessments in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) domains.
- Dr. Connolly’s research focuses on injury prevention during physical activity, safety in endurance sports, and women’s health during pregnancy and postpartum. Visit lab website.
- Dr. Cox’s research has been focused on understanding key determinants of physical activity behaviors. This has included investigating the role of physical education experiences in predicting students’ leisure-time physical activity and identifying social sources of influence (i.e., teacher, peers) that optimize motivation in the physical education setting. A second area of interest has been how body image variables impact physical activity motivation and behavior in adolescents and adults.
- Dr. Finley’s interests include educational issues associated with economic poverty and homelessness, diversity, and ways of understanding and being in the world. She also researches alternative approaches to curriculum and instruction that improve educational access for all students. Her inquiry takes its forms in arts-based research, life histories, and narratives.
- Dr. French’s research focuses on applied and methodological measurement research works to ensure scores we use to make decisions about people are accurate, equitable, and fair. Visit lab website.
Michael Trevisan
- Dr. Trevisan’s research is focused on the effective use of program evaluation as a tool to assist in the improvement of schools and social service organizations. I am also interested in the teaching of evaluation and evaluation capacity development.
- Dr. Ullrich-French’s research crosses areas within the college of education, across campus, and in the community. Her formal training is in Kinesiology with an emphasis on sport and exercise psychology and youth physical activity.
Medicine
- Dr. Lamps research is focused on sleep and cognitive performance in occupational, athletic and community-based environments.
- Dr. McDonell is a Professor at the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. He became a founding faculty member of the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine in 2015. He is also the Director of the Promoting Research Initiatives in Substance Use and Mental Health (PRISM) Collaborative, and the Co-Director of the Rural Center for Opioid Prevention, Treatment and Recovery, as well as a leader of the Center for Cannabis Policy, Research and Outreach.
- Dr. McPherson is a Professor and Vice Dean for Research. He is also the Director of the Program of Excellence in Addictions Research (PEAR) at the Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. Within PEAR, he is the Head and Principal Investigator of the Analytics and Psychopharmacology Laboratory (APPL).
- Dr. Oluwoye is an Associate Professor in the Department of Community and Behavioral Health. She co-leads the APPROACHES to Community Mental Health Co-Lab and is also a faculty member in the Promoting Research Initiatives in Substance Use and Mental Health (PRISM) Collaborative.
- John Roll earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Montana, a Master of Arts degree from Saint Bonaventure University, and a PhD from Washington State University. He completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Behavioral Pharmacology at the University of Vermont and a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Substance Abuse Research at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor.
- Dr. Smith’s laboratory, the Laboratory for Innovative Therapeutics, utilizes advanced quantitative as well as qualitative research methods and primarily conducts research related to cannabis, psychedelics, opioids, and genomics. Visit website.
- Dr. Weeks’ research interests center on the influence of interventions that can improve quality of life and health outcomes in various forms of physical and mental illness. These studies include focuses on preventative measures and risk reduction.
Nursing
- Dr. Beese’s is the principal investigator (PI) of the CHORDS Lab. She specializes in the development of practical applications of newly created knowledge. Shawna lives and serves as a city councilwoman for Millwood, WA. Her research spans rural neighborhoods and small-towns throughout WA State, but is based at the WSU-Whatcom Extension and the CHORDS Lab office in Bellingham, WA.
- Dr. Eddy’s research interests include pediatrics, youth with complex mental health issues, children with disabilities, family support, program evaluation.
- Practitioner related: Scope of practice and authority, prescribing competency, medication safety
- Patient related: Diagnosis, symptom management and treatment of brain conditions in children and adolescents such as ADHD and post-concussive syndrome
- Institution related: Institutional policies, regulatory development, and legislation specific to advanced nursing practice parameters
Gail O’Neal
- Dr. Smart’s research strengths are in workforce health and safety, particularly in military and nursing professions.
Psychology
- Dr. Strand is interested in the social and emotional development of children and the development of assessment/intervention frameworks used by schools and families. Visit lab website.