When prevention educator Elaine Berrena reflects on her 28-year Penn State career, she thinks of other people first. “I’ve made lifelong friends all over the world,” she said. “It’s amazing to think of how many people I’ve worked with to develop their skills.”
Elaine Berrena, prevention educator with the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center, coached health educators as they implemented the Learning to Breathe mindfulness program for adolescents in the Central Dauphin School District in Harrisburg, Penns
Elaine Berrena's career in prevention education has included roles as a project coordinator, facilitator, consultant, coach, teacher, trainer, program developer and evaluator.
Penn State researchers will share mindfulness tips and techniques with community members July 12 at the Art of Discovery booth, part of the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts.
Karen Bierman, Evan Pugh Professor of Psychology and director of the Penn State Child Study Center, has been named a 2019 Fellow of the Society for Prevention Research.
Diana Fishbein, professor of human development and family studies and director of the Program for Translational Research on Adversity and Neuroscience at Penn State, received the Presidential Award from the Society for Prevention Research at its annual meeting May 30 in San Francisco.
Based upon early successes, “The Art and Science of Human Flourishing” will be offered as a three-credit course at seven Penn State campuses — Altoona, Brandywine, Fayette, Greater Allegheny, Mont Alto, University Park and York — and is the focus of a research study evaluating possible outcomes in increased student health and well-being.
Penn State researchers recently attended the Consortium of Social Science Association’s 2019 Social Science Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C., taking part in a full schedule of events to bring awareness to social and behavioral sciences.
Sleep and exercise are vital to the wellbeing of new parents, but these essentials affect new moms differently than new dads, according to researchers.
For patients suffering with chronic pain, relief could soon be found as close as their nearest smart assistant. Researchers at Penn State are developing a way to deliver on-demand, guided mindfulness practices via Amazon Alexa to patients experiencing chronic pain. Through their method, a smart assistant will provide Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) practices to individuals in their homes. MBSR is a non-addictive, long-term pain-management alternative to opioid pain medication.
Nichole Sell, a predoctoral graduate student in biobehavioral health, received the Alumni Association Dissertation Award for outstanding professional accomplishment and achievement in scholarly research on April 11 at the Graduate Student Awards Luncheon held at the Nittany Lion Inn. The prestigious award recognizes Sell’s research in the social science category.
Sona Dimidjian, professor of psychology at the University of Colorado Boulder, recently presented the fourth annual Lecture on Compassion, “Expanding Compassion: Reflections on our Research, Practice, and Lives,” to more than 100 researchers and community members on the Penn State University Park campus. Her talk addressed how we can most effectively study and practice compassion in a way that promotes individual healing and social change.
Janet Welsh, associate research professor of health and human development and senior research associate with the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center, has worked in prevention research since 1994, with the aim of improving the lives of people and communities impacted by substance abuse and addiction. "I want to see how we can use what we have at the University to really help solve social problems, and being able to work with real communities, kids and families has always been important to me," said Welsh.
To help build resilient families in Pennsylvania, Penn State researchers like Janet Welsh are taking prevention research out of the lab and into communities where it matters most. "We aren’t going to solve the whole problem of drug abuse ourselves," Welsh said, "but because of our clear mission and track record of success, we can be a piece of the solution."
Parents in the midst of a psychologically or physically aggressive argument tend to also be aggressive with their children, according to researchers at Penn State. The team found that this "spillover" of aggression toward children causes kids to exhibit greater fear during future incidents of interparental aggression, regardless of the severity of those future incidents, than children who do not experience this spillover effect.
