Dr. Jennifer Frank

Jennifer Frank is an Associate Professor of Education (SPLED & SPSY) for the College of Education at Penn State.

Her work focuses on developing and evaluating school-based prevention practices that modify the social ecology of risk (school-family-peer-individual factors) that gives rise to high-incidence disabilities and preparing the next generation of school-based professionals to implement high-quality prevention practices in school settings. She strives to do interdisciplinary work and draws from diverse theoretical and methodological approaches to understand the determinants of risk and resilience. The ultimate goal of her teaching, research, and service activities is to create optimal social contexts to support academic learning that is sustainable in real-world settings. Dr. Frank's current research interests include school-based prevention, positive behavior supports, innovative statistical and experimental methods to validate evidence-based interventions, social-emotional learning, and mindfulness-based interventions.