Plenary Address

Elizabeth L. Paul
Chair of Psychology, The College of New Jersey

Undergraduate Research for the Public Good

Elizabeth Paul is Associate Professor and Chair of Psychology and Director of the Trenton Youth Community-based Research Corps at The College of New Jersey in Ewing, New Jersey. She received her Ph.D. in Personality Psychology at Boston University. Dr. Paul is an active advocate of community-based research as a powerful undergraduate pedagogical activity and as an agent of social justice and change. She and her students have worked on over 20 research projects in service of the needs of over a dozen Trenton-area non-profit community agencies. She serves on the board of the Trenton Youth Services Commission, and served as Co-Chair of the Board of the Trenton Center for Campus-Community Partnerships. Dr. Paul also conducts research on relational challenges of late adolescence and young adulthood including risky sexual experiences. Recently, her work on hookups , youths’ spontaneous and anonymous sexual experiences, was featured in a Newsweek article and on the Today Show. She is currently writing a book on youth sexuality. Her writings have appeared in Adolescence, Journal of College Student Development, Journal of Counseling and Development, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Journal of Sex Research, and the Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly. Dr. Paul is author of Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Sex and Gender (Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 2000, 2002). She also served as Co-Editor with Dr. Juda Bennett of Transformations: A Resource for Curriculum Transformation and Scholarship. Dr. Paul studies and conducts workshops on student learning assessment, and on higher education and social change.