BIOGRAPHY

Sarah D. Lynne is an associate professor in the Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences at the University of Florida. She earned her PhD from the University of Florida, Department of Psychology in 2008 with a focus on adolescent social development and developmental psychopathology. She then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.  During her postdoctoral fellowship, she continued her research with urban, minority populations while pursuing advanced statistical training as well as training in prevention science, health promotion, prevention research design and implementation, and advocacy.  Sarah then worked as a Society for Research in Child Development policy fellow at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, expanding upon her knowledge base of prevention research and extending her background to include clinical neuroscience and translation of evidence-based treatments to community providers. Her experience at NIDA provided her with a unique perspective regarding the interplay between science and policy. 

Using advanced quantitative statistical methods, Dr. Lynne conducts lifespan research on pathways to substance use and related mental, physical, and behavioral health problems complimenting original data collection with evaluations of large archival longitudinal datasets. She takes an ecological perspective, focusing on the interplay between individual characteristics, interpersonal relationships, and context across childhood and adolescence, with primary expertise in the biopsychosocial changes of adolescence. She has worked on the development, implementation, and evaluation of preventive interventions, including an ongoing evaluation of a teen pregnancy prevention program implemented in a rural Florida county. She has also collaborated with a team of researchers from the University of Florida and the Cherokee Nation on a community-based intervention to prevent youth alcohol use.  In addition, she is leading a NIH/NCATS funded study evaluating the association between pubertal timing, brain development, and psychosocial/behavioral adjustment among girls 8 – 12 years old.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Prevention Science
• Quantitative Methodology
• Adolescent Development