Laurie Behrman (Health and Behavioral Studies), who will graduate in May with her master's degree in Health Education, recently presented research based on her master's project, "Beating the Odds? Educational Interventions to Prevent Dating Violence," at Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2003 Student Research Conference and International Forum on February 28th.

Pia Rebello Britto (Human Development), a research scientist at TC's National Center for Children and Families, has won the 2003 Early Career Award in Human Development from Division E of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) for the significant contribution her work has made to the field of Human Development. The Early Career Award recognizes young professionals who have made noteworthy and important contributions to their field, within a few years of the receipt of their doctoral degree. Britto earned the Early Career Award for the book, The Role of Family Literacy Environments in Promoting Young Children's Emerging Literacy Skills, co-authored by her and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, and published by Jossey-Bass.

Henry M. Levin (International and Transcultural Studies) gave the Eggersten Lecture at the Annual Meetings of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) in New Orleans on March 14th. The Eggersten Lecture is the main invited address of the conference, and the invitation is tendered by the President to a prominent person in the field. Levin's topic was "Educational Privatization in Comparative Perspective." Other faculty members who attended and presented at the CIES meetings were Gita Steiner-Khamsi, Frances Vavrus, Lesley Bartlett and several of our recent graduates.

Suniya Luthar (Departments of Human Development and Clinical and Counseling Psychology) is the principal investigator in the study, "Substance Abuse Among Suburban Youth: Prospective Study." The National Institute on Drug Abuse funded Luthar $1,262,126. The study will focus on youth who were rarely studied by developmental scientists in the past-those in relatively affluent, suburban families. The few studies that do exist indicate surprisingly high maladjustment among these youth across various domains, particularly substance use and subjective distress.

Published Thursday, May. 1, 2003