Jan Wallander 

Professor of Psychological Sciences
School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts

Office Phone: 209-756-5731
Email: jwallander@ucmerced.edu

Research Interests:

Health psychology focused on children and adolescents. Interactions between behavior and health in children and adolescents. Quality of life in childhood, especially in vulnerable groups due to chronic illness or disability. Health disparities in children and adolescents. Interventions to improve health and quality of life in children and adolescents. Global health.

Curriculum Vita

Brief Biography

Jan L. Wallander (PhD, Purdue University, 1981) is Professor of Psychological Sciences at University of California, Merced since 2007, with a focus on health psychology, where he also is the Co-Director of both the Center of Excellence on Health Disparities and the Health Sciences Research Institute, and Chair of the Chancellor's Task Force on Community Engaged Scholarship.

He has internationally recognized expertise regarding risk and resilience processes associated with the health, quality of life, and well being of children and adolescents. A good portion of this work has focused on those with pediatric disease or disability, as well as their families, but he is also interested in disparities in these outcomes in the general child population.

Over the past decade, Dr. Wallander has had numerous leadership roles in national and international scientific activities. Examples are as President of the Society of Pediatric Psychology, Associate Editor of the Journal of Pediatric Psychology and International Review of Mental Retardation, Pediatric Program Chair for the 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2002 International Congress of Behavioral Medicine, and executive committee member of the International Society of Behavioral Medicine. He conducts collaborative research in the Netherlands, Australia, Norway, Zambia, India, and Pakistan currently.

Dr. Wallander has produced over 250 scientific publications and presentations at meetings and institutions nationally and internationally (see vita) . His work on health, quality of life, and well being in pediatric populations has been highly influential as reflected in numerous citations in the scientific literature, recognition for advancing the field, and invited addresses.

Current research involves the Healthy Passages project, which is a longitudinal cohort study tracking influences on health and development in adolescence, by following over 5,000 children from age 10 to 20, and the BRAIN-HIT project, a randomized controlled trial of a home-based developmental stimulation program to prevent neurodevelopmental disability in infants born at risk in developing countries (India, Pakistan, and Zambia).

Previously he was Professor of Psychology and Nursing, Director of Developmental Psychology in the Department of Psychology, as well as Associate Director for Human Development Research at the Civitan International Research Center at University of Alabama at Birmingham.