Karen L. Bierman, PhD, is currently Director of the Children, Youth, and Families Consortium (CYFC) at The Pennsylvania State University, where she is Distinguished Professor of Clinical Child Psychology. Her research has focused on understanding how peer relationships contribute to children's social-emotional development, social competence, and school adjustment. Dr. Bierman is particularly interested in the design and evaluation of programs that promote social competence and positive intergroup relations and that reduce aggression and violence. Currently, she is the director of the Pennsylvania site of the Fast Track Program, a national, multisite prevention trial focused on preventing antisocial behavior among high-risk youth, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (with additional funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the U.S. Department of Education). She is also Coinvestigator of the newly funded PROSPER program, supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which involves the diffusion of empirically supported prevention programs to schools through the use of cooperative extension-facilitated university/n-/community partnerships.
