Kimberly Henry, Ph.D., is a Professor at the Colorado State University Department of Psychology in Fort Collins, Colorado. She received her Ph.D. in biobehavioral health from The Pennsylvania State University.  Her areas of research expertise include school disengagement, adolescent and young adult development, drug use, delinquency and longitudinal methodology. Her focus is on the psychological and social factors that produce or mitigate the health-risking behaviors of adolescents and young adults. Her goal is to develop and test theoretical models in order to understand the complex interactions of risk, promotive, and protective factors that influence risky behaviors and to create and test methods for prevention.

Currently, Dr. Henry is collaborating with Dr. David Buller, Principal Investigator from Klein Buendel, on the research study Likes Pins and Views: Engaging Moms on Teen Indoor Tanning Thru Social Media (CA192652). This study focuses on the use of a social media campaign for mothers on the health and wellness of adolescent daughters. The intervention included theory-based messaging advocating adolescent girls avoid indoor tanning delivered through private Facebook groups. Overall, the research is evaluating the effectiveness of social media indoor tanning messages at decreasing mothers’ permissiveness for daughters to indoor tan. The research is also assessing daughters’ perceptions of their mothers’ permissiveness, prevalence of indoor tanning by mothers and daughters, and mothers’ support for bans on indoor tanning by minors.

In addition to research, Dr. Henry serves on the editorial boards for the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, the Journal of Primary Prevention, Adolescent Research Reviews, and Occupational Health Science. She serves as an ad hoc reviewer for multiple journals, and for the William T. Grant Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.