Laurence Steinberg, Ph.D., is the Distinguished University Professor and Laura H. Carnell Professor of Psychology at Temple University. Dr. Steinberg taught previously at Cornell University, the University of California at Irvine, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He was educated at Vassar College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated with honors and distinction in psychology in 1974; and at Cornell University, where he received his Ph.D. in human development and family studies in 1977. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and has been a Faculty Scholar of the William T. Grant Foundation. Dr. Steinberg is the immediate Past-President of the Society for Research on Adolescence, the largest international organization of social and behavioral scientists interested in adolescent growth and development.
A nationally recognized expert on psychological development and family relations during adolescence, Dr. Steinberg's research has focused on a range of topics in the study of contemporary adolescence, including parent-adolescent relationships, adolescent employment, high school reform, and juvenile crime and justice. His work has been funded by a variety of public and private organizations, including the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Justice, the MacArthur Foundation, the William T. Grant Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the William Penn Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Lilly Endowment. Dr. Steinberg served as a member of the National Academy of Science's Panel on the Health Implications of Child Labor and has been a frequent consultant to state and federal agencies and lawmakers on child labor, secondary education, and juvenile justice policy. He has been the recipient of numerous honors, including the John P. Hill Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Study of Adolescence, given by the Society for Research on Adolescence, and the Society for Adolescent Medicine's Gallagher Lectureship. Dr. Steinberg also has been recognized for excellence in research and teaching by the University of California, the University of Wisconsin, and Temple University, where he was honored in 1994 as one of the university's Great Teachers.
A frequent consultant on adolescent development for print and electronic media, including The New York Times, the major television networks, and National Public Radio, Dr. Steinberg is the author or co-author of more than 200 scholarly articles on growth and development during the teenage years, as well as the books You and Your Adolescent: A Parent's Guide for Ages 10 to 20 (with Ann Levine; HarperPerennial, 1997); Adolescence, the leading college textbook on adolescent development, now in its sixth edition (McGraw-Hill, 2002); When Teenagers Work: The Psychological and Social Costs of Adolescent Employment (with Ellen Greenberger; Basic Books, 1986); Crossing Paths: How Your Child's Adolescence Triggers Your Own Crisis (with Wendy Steinberg; Simon & Schuster, 1994); Beyond the Classroom: Why School Reform Has Failed and What Parents Need to Do (with Bradford Brown and Sanford Dornbusch; Simon & Schuster, 1996), Studying Minority Adolescents: Conceptual, Methodological, and Theoretical Issues (with Vonnie McLoyd; Erlbaum, 1998), and the Handbook of Adolescent Psychology (with Richard Lerner; Wiley, in preparation). Beyond the Classroom was acclaimed as one of the most important books on education written during the last decade.
Dr. Steinberg's current work is in the area of juvenile justice policy. He currently serves as Director of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice, a national initiative aimed at informing juvenile justice policy and practice with scientific information about normative and atypical adolescent development. Through the Network, Dr. Steinberg is co-Principal Investigator of several large-scale studies, including the first national study of juveniles' competence to stand trial; an extensive longitudinal study of juvenile felons that is tracking 1,200 offenders in Philadelphia and Phoenix, as they move into, through, and out of the justice system; and several studies on the development of criminal culpability during late childhood and early adolescence. In 2002, two edited volumes produced by the Network, Youth on Trial: A Developmental Perspective on Juvenile Justice and The Changing Borders of Juvenile Justice: Transfer of Adolescents to the Criminal Court, both published by the University of Chicago Press, received the Society for Research on Adolescence award for books published on adolescence and social policy.
