Empowerment Series: Human Behavior in the Social Environment

Lela Rankin Williams is an associate professor in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University. Dr. Williams has interdisciplinary training in psychology and human development and family studies. She regards cultural and familial relationships as critical influences on development from infancy through adolescence. She has collected, analyzed, and published data from several long-term longitudinal studies, as well as some community-based intervention studies, in the areas of infant-temperament, mother-infant bonding, parenting and parenting interventions, adolescent substance use and prevention, dating violence, juvenile desistance, and sexual education across the lifespan.José B. Ashford teaches the human behavior courses in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University and serves as a professor in the doctoral program in sociology. He is also an affiliate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Law and Behavioral Science, and Justice and Social Inquiry. Dr. Ashford is the principle investigator of the Community Justice Support Services grant, funded by the Maricopa County Human Services Department, and the Chief Research Consultant for the Office of the City of Phoenix Prosecutor. He testifies around the country as a social history and life course expert in the assessment of mitigating factors in capital murder cases, and is actively engaged with the Arizona Justice Project in examining the lives of juveniles serving life sentences. He has published widely in areas dealing with the assessment, classification, and treatment of special need offenders; forensic social work; mitigation of punishment; risk and needs assessment; and offender reentry.Craig Winston LeCroy is a professor in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University. Dr. LeCroy has directed several projects for children and adolescents, including a Children's Bureau grant focused on home visitation for parents of young children, a National Institute of Mental Health Training Grant for emotionally disturbed children and adolescents, and several prevention projects including substance abuse prevention, teen pregnancy prevention, and Go Grrls, a primary prevention program for early adolescent girls. Professor LeCroy has published widely in the areas of home visitation children's mental health, social skills training with youth, and risk and needs assessment with juvenile offenders.