188 Scientific Facts About Teen Sex, Contraception, Pregnancy, Parenting, and Sexually... by Holly Kreider, Laura Lessard, Denise M. Hill and Diana Dull Akers

Holly Kreider, Ed.D., is Vice President of Research and Communications and Senior Research Associate at Sociometrics Corporation. She currently leads federally funded and private sector contracts on best-practice adolescent pregnancy prevention, children s mental health, early childhood intervention, parent leadership and family support. She also currently serves on the Board for TeenNOW California (formerly the California Alliance Concerned with School-Age Parenting and Pregnancy Prevention). Prior to joining Sociometrics, Dr. Kreider managed educational research projects and professional development activities at the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) for 15 years and served on the faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She received her Doctorate in Education from Harvard University.

Laura Lessard, M.P.H., is a CDC Foundation Fellow serving in the Coordinating Center for Health Promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education at the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University. She has worked in the public health field as both an evaluator and a researcher for many years, working on diverse topics including HIV/AIDS prevention, teen pregnancy, early childhood health, and most recently obesity prevention. At Sociometrics she served as a Research Associate, collaborating on projects in a number of these areas. Ms. Lessard received her Master of Public Health degree from Tufts University School of Medicine.

Denise M. Hill, B.A., is a former public school teacher and volunteer literacy tutor who obtained both a Multiple Subjects Credential and a Single Subject Credential in English. Later, she spent 11 years at Sociometrics working in office management, operations, and publication design and layout. Currently she is an administrator for the City of Petaluma, as well as a classically trained and certified yoga instructor and certified personal trainer. She received her Bachelor of Arts from California State University, Hayward.

Diana Dull Akers, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Associate at Sociometrics Corporation, where she has led a number of federally funded projects concerning HIV/AIDS prevention and professional development, adolescent reproductive health, alcohol risk reduction and aging. These projects have involved the development and testing of several client-directed, computer-based personal risk assessment and education tools, designed in both English and culturally tailored Spanish formats for use in diverse clinic settings. Dr. Dull Akers previously held a joint teaching appointment in Sociology and Gender Studies at Sonoma State University. Her areas of interest include social-behavioral approaches to health and illness, gender and sexuality, aging, and ethnographic research methods. She received her PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Josefina J. Card, Ph.D., is Founder and President of Sociometrics Corporation, and a nationally recognized behavioral and social scientist with expertise in the establishment and operation of social science research-based resources, products and services. She has served as Principal Investigator of over 80 R&D projects, many of them multi-year investigations, including the archiving of exemplary datasets and effective prevention programs, and the development of multimedia science-based health educational and training products. Dr. Card has also authored over 80 books, monographs, and journal articles; led training workshops and institutes on science-based prevention program planning, implementation, and evaluation; and served as a member of many federal advisory committees and NIH Study Sections. She received her PhD in Social Psychology from Carnegie-Mellon University.