Deborah Rivas-Drake, PhD
Faculty Affiliate, Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention
Professor, Department of Psychology, School of Literature, Science and the Arts
Deborah Rivas-Drake, Ph.D., is the Stephanie J. Rowley Collegiate Professor at the University of Michigan, with affiliations in psychology and education, and the President-Elect of the Society for Research in Child Development. The overarching goal of her research is to illuminate promising practices–such as transformative social-emotional learning–that disrupt racism and xenophobia and help keep diverse young people on trajectories of positive contribution to their schools and communities. Together with the Contexts of Academic + Socioemotional Adjustment (CASA) Lab (casalab.org), she examines how school, peer, family, and community settings can support youth in navigating issues related to race and ethnicity, and how these experiences inform their academic, socioemotional, and civic development. Dr. Rivas-Drake has been recognized with the Social Policy Book Award from SRA, the Eleanor Maccoby Award in Developmental Psychology from APA, and the Mavis Hetherington Award for Excellence in Applied Developmental Science (APA), and elected Fellow status by AERA and APA. In addition to her academic publications, she has collaboratively developed products for parents, educators, non-profit organizations, youth program developers, and industry. Check out her recent collaborative public scholarship efforts at: sparxproject.org