Dorothy Espelage

Dorothy L. Espelage, Ph.D., is a William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of North Carolina. She is the recipient of the APA Lifetime Achievement Award in Prevention Science and the 2016 APA Award for Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy, and is a Fellow of APS, APA, and AERA. She was recently elected to the National Academy of Education. She earned her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Indiana University in 1997. Over the last 22 years, she has authored over 200 peer- reviewed articles, six edited books, and 70 chapters on bullying, homophobic teasing, sexual harassment, dating violence, and gang violence. Her research focuses on translating empirical findings into prevention and intervention programming and she has secured over fourteen million dollars of external funding. She advises members of US Congress and Senate on bully prevention legislation. She has conducted randomized clinical trials to evaluate K-12 social-emotional learning programs to reduce youth aggression, peer-led interventions to address sexual violence and suicidal behaviors, and virtual reality-based bully prevention programs.