slanza@psu.edu
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Stephanie joined the faculty at The Pennsylvania State University in 2004 and has devoted her career to advancing research on the prevention of substance misuse through the use of innovative quantitative methods. She has served as the principal investigator on research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Cancer Institute and has mentored many students and early-career researchers.

Stephanie is passionate about advancing science not only through her own research, but also by training substance use researchers to adopt cutting-edge statistical methods in their own research. Most of her work has focused on methodological advancements to and applications of latent class analysis and time-varying effect modeling. Stephanie truly is an interdisciplinary researcher and has built an extensive network of collaborators both within and beyond the Penn State community.

Stephanie served as scientific director of The Methodology Center from 2004-2017. She was named director of the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center in 2017, where she leads research devoted to improving the health and well-being of individuals, families and communities. Beginning in 2018, Stephanie also directs Penn State’s new Consortium to Combat Substance Abuse, a University initiative to address the opioid epidemic and other issues related to substance misuse.