I am an assistant professor in the Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management at the Pennsylvania State University. I conduct research on the development of active lifestyles and youth involvement in out-of-school time programs, often in the context of partnerships with youth development practitioners.
Prior to coming to Penn State I served as the Assistant Director of the Program for Research on Youth Development and Evaluation (PRYDE) at Cornell University, working to promote positive youth development through research and providing evidence-based best practices to youth-serving organizations. My prior experience with research-practice integration has involved working with the American Youth Circus Organization to conduct research examining connections between youth circus participation and positive youth development, and collaborating with colleagues at Positive Coaching Alliance to design and implement an evaluation of their training programs for high school coaches and athletes. Through all of my work, I aim to to help youth-serving programs provide effective and meaningful programming to better help youth thrive. |