My main area of research is understanding how young adults make health-related decisions, including decisions about drugs, sex, alcohol, and tobacco. Most of my recent research has focused on substance use. I study how adolescents think about the risks and benefits of tobacco and marijuana. For example, with the increased use of e-cigarettes, we ask how adolescents perceive electronic cigarettes versus traditional cigarettes. We not only look at health-related risks, like pregnancy or lung cancer, but also social risks including sports performance, yellowing teeth, and sense of belonging. Much of our research has influenced how the FDA crafts and addresses their messages to young people. We are also running a longitudinal study of California youth looking at changes in their behaviors over time, susceptibility to marketing, and their perceived risks and benefits of tobacco. We also recently created and launched an online toolkit to be implemented in school districts across the state as a tobacco prevention progra

I am a first-generation college student, so I’ve always been interested in the trajectories of adolescents. My friends used to approach me to talk about many of these same topics, and I became interested in preventing these behaviors. Today, I’m very interested in translational science: my work involves taking the theories and research around decision making and applying them to inform how we make healthier decisions.

One of the things that I have noticed here at Stanford is that the collaboration is fantastic. I have found that there is an incredible willingness to share credit and work together. In addition, Stanford is diverse in terms of academic discipline. For example, I am a Ph.D., yet I help co-lead the pediatric residency program.

I think of diversity as fostering inclusion in whatever you do—no matter what you do, the problems we’re facing cannot be solved from your own myopic perspective. As health professionals, we need diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and discipline if we truly want to influence public and individual health.

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