Background

Dr. Zarrett received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Developmental Science at the University of Michigan in 2006. After earning her degree she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development, Tufts University. Her work focuses on understanding positive adolescent development in relation to the complex interactions between youth and their environments over time. This research involves adequately addressing the needs and interests of underrepresented groups, with the goal of generating sound theoretical inferences and practical applications that will be useful to researchers, policy makers and other youth advocates.

Research

Specific research interests include:

• The role of out-of-school activities in promoting healthy developmental pathways
• The promotion of healthy behaviors and attitudes, adolescent obesity prevention and intervention
• The effects of community, school, family, peers, and personal factors, on youth choices, motivation, and adjustment
• Multilevel systems theory and the coupling of variable- and pattern-centered methodological approaches to maximize understanding of youth in context, and the conceptualization of developmental stability and change.