She received her doctorate in Clinical Psychology and Health Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh, completed her clinical internship at the University of Illinois Institute for Juvenile Research, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Health Psychology at the University of California, San Francisco. Her interests include health risk and health protective behaviors during adolescence and young adulthood; socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities in consequences of risk taking; mechanisms linking stressful life circumstances to health risk behavior and factors promoting resilience; and public policies affecting adolescent health.