General Information
Postdoctoral Research Associate
ADDRESS: Dept of Emergency Medicine
UMass Medical School
55 Lake Avenue North
Worcester, MA 01655
Office Phone: 508-421-5522
EMAIL: BeauW.Abar@umassmed.edu
DEGREES: B.A. (2003) Psychology, State University of New York at Geneseo
M.A. (2005) Applied Developmental Psychology, George Mason University
Ph.D. (2010) Human Development and Family Studies, Penn State University
RESEARCH INTERESTS: The focus of my research is on the application of advanced methodologies to the study of health risk and protective behavior, with an emphasis on heterogeneous development and program efficacy. I am particularly interested in examining (a) the latent groupings of individuals that result in differential responses to prevention efforts, (b) differential trajectories of risk behaviors from childhood through emerging adulthood, and (c) differential access to substane use and mental health treatment. Much of my pre-doctoral work at Penn State focused on the use of latent class, latent profile, and growth mixture analyses in the fields of alcohol and skin cancer prevention and academic achievement. I also have extensive experience and interest in the use of structural equation and multilevel modeling, as well as person-specific, time series analyses. I am currently working on applying these methodological skills to the study of substance use and suicide prevention
TEACHING INTERESTS: Research Methods; Advanced Research Methods; Adolescent Development; Developmental Design; Multivariate Analysis