Her research focus is on adolescent problem behaviors and includes both etiological and evaluation research. Her etiological research has included identifying determinants, at multiple ecological levels, of violence between adolescent dating couples, adolescent cigarette smoking and alcohol use, and adolescent sexual behavior. She has a particular interest in testing biopsychosocial models of adolescent health risk behaviors, especially models examining the influence of interactions between biological factors such as genotypes and hormones and contextual variables on health risk behaviors. Her evaluation research has included the development and evaluation of programs for preventing adolescent dating abuse and adolescent substance use.