Laurie J Bauman, Ph.D., a sociologist, is a tenured Professor of Pediatrics and the Director of the Preventive Intervention Research Center (PIRC). She has been Principal Investigator of multiple NIH-funded studies that apply social science theory to the prevention of mental and physical health conditions in children, adolescents and their parents. For the past 10 years Dr. Bauman has been studying health issues in children and youth, with special attention on adolescent sexual risk behavior and child/adolescent mental health. With her colleagues at the PIRC, she has developed and tested 6 interventions using randomized controlled trial (RCT) designs to identify strategies that are successful in reducing HIV/STI transmission. Dr. Bauman has examined service learning (that gives teens the opportunity to teach other teens what they learned about safer sex) and relationship characteristics (so teens recognize that being in love and trusting one¹s partner are associated with stopping condom use).

 Dr. Bauman is currently Principal Investigator on an NICHD-funded 2-group randomized trial to assess the effectiveness of Project Prepared, an HIV/STI prevention program for young people aged 12-14. She is also PI of an NIMHD-funded project “Bronx Youth as Partners in Community Based Participatory Research” which is a teen-led partnership of adults and teens from the Bronx community. The community partners, Bronx teens aged 13-17 years, evaluated 6 health issues and selected mental health to focus on. Together with adult partners, they developed a preventive mental health intervention called “BxThunder” which is currently being tested in an RCT with 720 youth in 5 community settings.  Seventeen Bronx agencies were involved in BxThunder; they were drawn from the membership of the Bronx Youth as Partners community coalition, which includes over 50 organizational partners.

 In addition, Dr. Bauman is also the PI (New York site) of a 9-city initiative that is funding CFARS to assist local Departments of Health to implement the President¹s National AIDS Prevention Plan. The New York site of ECHPP (The Enhanced Comprehensive HIV Prevention Planning and Implementation for Metropolitan Statistical Areas Most Affected by HIV/AIDS²) is focusing on improving linkage and engagement in care of newly diagnosed HIV positive individuals.

 Dr.Bauman has been elected to the American Pediatrics Society and the New York Academy of Medicine; was the recipient of the Lela Rowland award from the National Mental Health Association and the 2008 Public Health Community Award from the Public Health Association of New York City; was Associate Editor of The Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics; and currently serves on the Joint Executive Committee of the Einstein-Montefiore Institutional Review Board.