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Faculty by area of expertise 
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Wendy Kliewer
Professor and director of graduate studies
Contact information
Phone: (804) 828-1793
E-mail: wkliewer@vcu.edu
Education
Ph.D. (1989) University of California, Irvine
Program affiliation
Developmental (also an affiliate of Social and Clinical Child/Adolescent)
Research interests
My research focuses on understanding stress and coping processes in children and adolescents. I have examined individual, situational and environmental influences on children and adolescents coping and adjusting to a variety of life stressors. For the last decade I have focused on chronic stressors such as poverty and community violence. In particular, I am interested in the role of the family in mitigating, or alternatively enhancing, youths’ risk for negative outcomes in the face of stressful life events and circumstances. I also have examined psychological, behavioral and physiological (e.g., blood pressure, epinephrine and norepinephrine, cortisol) responses to stressors. Currently, I am conducting both generative and intervention work with youths. I have a NIDA grant to investigate the confluence of environmental, psychological and biological risk for substance use in youths, and NIMH funding to conduct an expressive writing intervention with middle school exposed to community and peer violence.
Selected publications
Sullivan, T. N., Helms, S. W., Kliewer, W., & Goodman, K. (In press). Associations between sadness and anger regulation coping, emotional expression, and physical and relational aggression among urban adolescents. Social Development.
Kliewer, W., Reid-Quinones, K., Shields, B. J., & Foutz, L. (In press). Multiple risk, emotion regulation skill, and cortisol in low-income African American youth: A prospective study. Journal of Black Psychology.
Ciairano, S., Kliewer, W., & Rabaglietti, E. (In press). Adolescent risk behavior in Italy and The Netherlands: A cross-national study of psychosocial protective factors. European Psychologist.
Kliewer, W., & Sullivan, T. N. (In press). Community violence exposure, threat appraisal, and adjustment in adolescents. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology.
Cunningham, J. N., Kliewer, W., & Garner, P. (In press). Emotion socialization, child emotion understanding and regulation, and adjustment in urban African American families: Differential associations across child gender. Development and Psychopathology.
Recent/current courses taught at VCU
- Research Internship, undergraduate level
- Fieldwork, undergraduate level
- Parenting, graduate level
- Developmental Research Methods, graduate level
| Recent grants or awards |
Principal Investigator, “Mediators of Violence Exposure and Drug Use in Youth,” sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse (R21 DA020086). September, 2007 – August, 2009. |
Principal Investigator, “School-based expressive writing intervention trials for youth exposed to violence,” sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH081166). June, 2008 – April, 2011. |
Principal Investigator, “Paternal contributions to risk for adolescent substance use.” Institute for Drug and Alcohol Studies, VCU. December, 2006 – present. |
Co-Investigator, “VCU Academic Center of Excellence in Youth Violence Prevention,” sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (1 U49 CE000730). September, 2005 – September, 2010. |
| Principal Investigator, “Youth Drug Use, Violence Exposure, and Physiology,” sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse (K01 DA015442 01A1). September, 2003 to June, 2008. |