Select Past Projects

This project conducted a series of secondary data analyses, drawing on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), the Great Smoky Mountains Study (GSMS), and the Fast Track study, to shed light on pathways from childhood/adolescent stressors to social and economic disengagement from society to suicidal thoughts and behaviors, illicit drug use, and alcohol problems. This study was funded by the US National Institute of Mental Health.

This project created mechanistically targeted interventions for the primary prevention of stress-related disorders, and was conducted in collaboration with an interdisciplinary team from 10+ research centers in Europe, including with Prof. Dr. Birgit Kleim at the Department of Psychology & the Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and Psychosomatics at UZH. This study was funded as a H2020 Research and Innovation, European Horizon Program.

This study tested whether and how physiological, emotional, and behavioral self-regulation during childhood predicts cardiovascular risk in late adolescence in a community sample in the United States. The study also examined whether these associations are mediated by health behaviors during adolescence (e.g., exercise, nutrition, and sleep). The project was conducted by an interdisciplinary team from Developmental, Clinical, and Quantitative Psychology, Pediatrics, Exercise Physiology, and Nutrition. This study was funded by the US Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

This study tested a life-course model of early substance use in a community-representative study in the United States. The goal was to characterize both: a) the early psychosocial and biological risk and resilience environment of early substance use, and b) the long-term outcomes of such early use. This project was conducted by an interdisciplinary team from Psychology, Psychiatry, Public Health, and Biostatistics. This study was funded by the US National Institute on Drug Abuse.