Our Members

Dr. Sarah Stoddard is an associate professor in the School of Nursing--where she also directs the Ph.D. program--an associate professor in the School of Public Health, and faculty co-lead of the EFDC's Data & Design Core. Additionally, she serves as co-director of the Training and Education Core at the U-M Injury Prevention Center, and co-director of the Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and Health. 

Dr. Stoddard is recognized nationally for her leadership in adolescent health and her interdisciplinary research to prevent substance use and violence among vulnerable populations of youth. Her research aims to improve our understanding of youth development within adverse contexts, particularly the interaction of individual and environmental influences (e.g., school, neighborhood) on youth outcomes, and to guide school and community prevention efforts focused on substance use and youth violence. Through research, leadership in community-based partnerships, and linkages with schools, she has advanced the frontier of substance use prevention through interventions that enhance future expectations and school connectedness among vulnerable youth. Her research has significantly broadened the knowledge base and the importance of future expectations as a key internal asset for preventing substance use and violence.

Dr. Stoddard brings her practical experience as a public health nurse and nurse practitioner to her classroom teaching and mentoring and believes in the importance of incorporating practical experiences into classroom learning. She provides opportunities for students to be active contributors to the learning process and engages them in a variety of interactive and collaborative activities, in-class or online, that include time for student deliberation, reflection, and synthesis of key concepts.  She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on community and population health. Dr. Stoddard has mentored numerous graduate students from across the university in their research and scholarship. Her mentoring experiences have focused primarily on child and adolescent health from a community/population health perspective.