David L. DuBois is a professor in the Division of Community Health Sciences within the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He received his doctorate in clinical-community psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on delineating the conditions under which two widely studied protective factors, self-esteem and mentoring relationships, can contribute to resilience and holistic positive development and on translating knowledge in these areas to the design of effective youth programs and policies. He is lead coeditor of the Handbook of Youth Mentoring, which received the Social Policy Award for Best Edited Book from the Society for Research on Adolescence. His research has received funding from such sources as the National Institutes of Health, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, and the Institute of Education Sciences. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Community Research and Action and has been a Distinguished Fellow of the William T. Grant Foundation.
Nelson Portillo is a visiting professor in the Local Development Program of the Department of Sociology and Political Sciences at the University of Central America in San Salvador. He received his doctorate in social psychology from Loyola University Chicago and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral fellow under David DuBois in the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His main areas of research are youth violence; community violence prevention programs, especially youth mentoring initiatives; and youth and public policy in Latin America. He is a former Fulbright scholar from El Salvador. He is also founder and editor of the Salvadoran Journal of Psychology and Regional Vice-President for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean of the Interamerican Psychological Society.
Jean E. Rhodes is a professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. A clinical-community psychologist, she completed her doctorate from DePaul University and her internship at the University of Chicago Medical School. Rhodes has devoted her career to understanding the role of intergenerational relationships in the lives of disadvantaged youth. She has published on topics related to positive youth development, the transition to adulthood, and mentoring. She is author of the book Stand by Me: The Risks and Rewards of Mentoring Today’s Youth (Harvard University Press). Rhodes is a Fellow in the American Psychological Association and the Society for Research and Community Action and a Distinguished Fellow of the William T. Grant Foundation. Rhodes is also a member of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood and Chair of the Research and Policy Council of the National Mentoring Partnership. She sits on the Board of Directors of the National Mentoring Partnership, the advisory boards of over a dozen mentoring and policy organizations, and the editorial board of several journals in community and adolescent psychology.
Naida Silverthorn is a senior research specialist in the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago and an Instructor in the Psychology Department at Northeastern Illinois University. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Ottawa, specializing in work with children, adolescents, and families. Her research interests are in the areas of adolescent self-esteem, positive youth development, and mentoring.
Jeffrey C. Valentine is an associate professor in the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology within the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Louisville. He received his doctorate in social psychology from the University of Missouri-Columbia. An internationally recognized expert in the methodology of systematic reviewing and meta-analysis, he is coeditor (with Harris Cooper and Larry Hedges) of the Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis (2nd ed.; Russell Sage Foundation) and is the author of over two dozen works that use, explain, or seek to improve these methods. His empirical studies focus on applying social psychology to educational problems, often with the goal of informing policy decisions.
