Profile

Dr. Khurana is an Associate Professor in the Counseling Psychology and Human Services Department and Research Scientist at the Prevention Science Institute.

Dr. Khurana's research takes a developmental-ecological approach to understanding and preventing maladaptive risk-taking during adolescence, including substance abuse and dependence, sexual risk-taking, aggression, and academic disengagement. Her recent work has focused on the development of self-regulation and its role in predicting adolescent risk behavior trajectories. Another strand of her research focuses on examining media and technology effects on adolescent health and risk behaviors, in the context of personality factors (e.g., impulsivity, sensation seeking) and parenting behaviors. She also has expertise in latent variable and multi-level modeling, mediation and moderation analysis, missing data and longitudinal data analysis. Dr. Khurana's research has been funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), and the Instititute of Education Sciences (IES), and featured on NIDA website and mainstream media outets like National Public Radio (NPR).