Program Co-Chairs

Ryan J. Watson, PhD Associate Professor Human Development & Family Sciences University of Connecticut	Zena R. Mello, PhD Professor of Psychology San Francisco State University

 OUR THEME

The 2024 SRA annual meeting theme, "Today’s Innovations, Tomorrow’s Insights", highlights how the challenges facing youth in the 21st century require creative and visionary solutions. In our program, we are centering the experiences of adolescents with marginalized identities (for example class, race/ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation), youth voice (e.g., spoken word), and contemporary topics in adolescent research (e.g., climate change and OpenAI). Driven by the need to better understand and serve adolescents who have continued to navigate rapid changes in technology--in the context of a COVID-19 pandemic--the annual conference will highlight and center the importance of integrating contemporary methodologies and frameworks to create science that uses the knowledge from today’s ever-changing world to be ready for the implications of artificial intelligence, automation, and a rapidly changing climate. 

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS

We are excited to announce that Dr. Margaret Beale Spencer will give the Roberta Grodberg Simmons Prize Lecture to speak on her seminal work focused on resiliency, identity, and competence formation processes for diverse humans—particularly African American youth. Additionally, Dr. Reed Larson will reflect on how a dynamic career of setbacks and successes focused on adolescent development in a time before today’s social media and artificial intelligence can inform the future of adolescent science.