Welcome to our website!
2018-2019 lab members.
Back row, l to r: Latisha Swygert, Ryan Haik, Rachel Glime, Lydia Sigurdson, Chester Moore, Japriest Jerry
Middle row: Margaret Bullerjahn, Paula Floyd, Amber Slaughter, Lauren Burns, LaQuitta Simpson
Front row: Dr. Charles, Alejandra Salgado, Brooke Cole
The Youth Substance Use and Risky Behavior Lab is headed by Dr. Nora Charles, a licensed clinical psychologist and Associate Professor at The University of Texas at San Antonio. Please note that website updates are forthcoming! As of Fall 2024, Dr. Charles has left the University of Southern Mississippi (though maintains ties to that program) and accepted a position to help develop a new Clinical Psychology PhD program at UTSA and serve as the inaugural Director of that program in the coming years. Dr. Charles will not be accepting Clinical Psychology PhD students until the UTSA program is ready to admit its first cohort of students. Students interested in other forms of graduate study with Dr. Charles in the interim may consider applying to the master's program or Experimental Psychology PhD program at UTSA.
The overarching goals of the Youth Substance Use and Risky Behavior Lab are 1) to understand why children and adolescents engage in behaviors that put themselves and others at risk for harm, and 2) to determine the best ways to reduce the occurrence of these behaviors. To achieve these goals, Dr. Charles and her students study externalizing behaviors in children and adolescents, risk-taking during adolescence and young adulthood, the development of substance use disorders and juvenile delinquency, the effects of stress on children and adolescents, and community-based interventions for at-risk and delinquent youth. Most of our projects recruit participants from the local community. We also work with several agencies that serve youth and families in south Mississippi (see Current Research for details). These relationships allow us to better understand the lives and experiences of people who engage in the types of behaviors we study, and they also provide opportunities for our research to have an impact on people in the local area. We believe that community-based "research in the real world" is vitally important to the advancement of clinical psychological science because it promotes research innovation and shortens the science-into-practice process.
|
Graduate student Lauren Burns presenting research on how personality and psychopathology relate to substance use among youths in a residential facility at the 2019 Society for Personality Assessment meeting in New Orleans. This poster won a Diversity Award at the Conference!
|
Graduate student Lydia Sigurdson presenting research on how impulsivity relates to coping behaviors among youths in a residential facility at the 2019 Society for Personality Assessment meeting in New Orleans. This poster won Honorable Mention!
|
Honors student Latisha Swygert and her award-winning poster at USM's 2018 Undergraduate Symposium. Latisha compared differences in mental health symptoms and program perceptions among Black and White youths in a residential program.
|
McNair Scholar Amber Slaughter presenting research on race, religiosity, and non-suicidal self-injury in adolescents at USM's 2018 Undergraduate Research Symposium.
|
Graduate student Paula Floyd presenting research on how scales of the PAI-A relate to suicidal behaviors and NSSI among youths in a residential facility at the 2019 Society for Personality Assessment meeting in New Orleans.
|
YSURB lab members learning about EEG at a joint lab luncheon with the USM Clinical Psychology labs of Drs. Stephanie Smith and Dan Capron.
|
Visit the university homepage: https://www.usm.edu
