Elizabeth Cauffman

Specializations:
adolescent development, mental health, juvenile justice, legal and social policy

Curriculum Vitae

Elizabeth Cauffman is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychological Science at the University of California, Irvine and holds courtesy appointments in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society, the School of Education, and the School of Law.  Dr. Cauffman received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Temple University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Center on Adolescence at Stanford University.  She has published over 180 articles, chapters, and book chapters on a range of topics in the study of adolescence, including adolescent brain development, risk-taking and decision-making, parent-adolescent relationships, and juvenile justice.  Findings from Dr. Cauffman’s research were incorporated into the American Psychological Association’s amicus briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons, which abolished the juvenile death penalty, and in both Graham v. Florida and Miller v. Alabama, which placed limits on the use of life without parole as a sentence for juveniles.  As part of her larger efforts to help research inform practice and policy, she served as a member of the MacArthur Foundation’s Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice as well as the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on the Neurobiological and Socio-behavioral Science of Adolescent Development and its Applications.  Dr. Cauffman currently directs the Center for Psychology & Law (http://psychlaw.soceco.uci.edu/) as well as the Masters in Legal & Forensic Psychology (https://mlfp.soceco.uci.edu/) at UCI. To learn more about her research, please visit her Development, Disorder, and Delinquency lab website.