Scientist NameLeslie Leve, Ph.D.

Senior Scientist
Oregon Social Learning Center


• The Early Growth and Development Study - Phase I (PI, NICHD, NIDA, and OBSSR)
• The Early Growth and Development Study – Phase II (PI on OSLC subcontract, NIDA, NIMH and OBSSR)
• The Early Growth and Development Study – NIMH (Multiple PI, NIMH)
• The Early Growth and Development Study – Health (PI on OSLC subcontract, NIDDK)
• OSLC Relationship Study 3 (PI, NIDA)
• OSLC Relationship Study 3 - Mood and Behavior Over Time (Co-I, NIMH)
• Preventing Drug Abuse and HIV/AIDS in Delinquent Youths: An Integrated Intervention (Co-I, NIDA)
• Center for Drug Abuse Prevention in the Child Welfare System, (Co-I, NIDA)
• Adolescent Decision Making Study (Multiple PI, NIDA)
• Community Development Teams to Scale-Up MTFC in California (Co-I, NIMH)
• Preventing Behavior and Health Problems in Foster Teens (Co-I, NIDA)



Leslie Leve, Ph.D.Primary research and clinical interests

Leslie Leve, PhD, is a Senior Scientist and Science Director for the Oregon Social Learning Center. She also holds a Senior Scientist appointment at the Center for Research to Practice in Eugene. Her research interests focus on the etiology of child psychopathology, with a focus on understanding family influences on child and adolescent development using a combination of intervention studies aimed at testing prevention effects, and adoption studies aimed at examining the interplay between genetic and family environmental influences on child well being. Dr. Leve has been an investigator on more than a dozen research grants funded by the National Institutes of Health and has directed prevention intervention trials with children in foster care. She is currently directing the Early Growth and Development Study-Phase I project, a prospective adoption study of birth parents and adoptive families that aims to understand the interplay between family and inherited contributions to child development during early childhood. Combined with the Early Growth and Development Study-Phase II project, this study follow 561 families from birth through school entry. Dr. Leve also serves as Principal Investigator on two grants focused on adjustment outcomes among females with child welfare and/or juvenile justice histories.

 

Selected publications

Leve, L. D., Chamberlain, P., & Reid, J. B. (2005). Intervention outcomes for girls referred from juvenile justice: Effects on delinquency. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73, 1181–1185.
                                                      
Leve, L. D., Kim, H., & Pears, K. C. (2005). Childhood Temperament and Family Environment as Predictors of Internalizing and Externalizing Trajectories from Age 5 to Age 17. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 33, 505-520.

Leve, L. D., & Chamberlain, P. (2007). A randomized evaluation of Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care: Effects on school attendance and homework completion in juvenile justice girls. Research on Social Work Practice, 17, 657–663.

Leve, L. D., Neiderhiser, J. M., Ge, X., Scaramella, L. V., Conger, R. D., Reid, J. B., Shaw, D. S., & Reiss, D. (2007). The Early Growth and Development Study: A prospective adoption design. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 1, 84–95.

Reiss, D. & Leve, L. D. (2007). Genetic expression outside the skin: Clues to mechanisms of Genotype × Environment interaction. Development and Psychopathology, 19, 1005–1027.

Leve, L. D., Fisher, P. A., & Chamberlain, P. (2009). Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care as a preventive intervention to promote resiliency among youth in the child welfare system. Journal of Personality, 77, 1869–1902. PMC: 2787781

Leve, L. D., Harold, G. T., Ge, X., Neiderhiser, J. M., Shaw, D., Scaramella, L. V., & Reiss, D. (2009). Structured parenting of toddlers at high versus low genetic risk: Two pathways to child problems. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 48, 1102–1109. PMC: 2780535

Leve, L. D., Kerr, D., Shaw, D., Ge, X., Neiderhiser, J. M., Reid, J. B., Scaramella, L., Conger, R., & Reiss, D. (2010). Infant pathways to externalizing behavior: Evidence of Genotype x Environment interaction. Child Development, 81, 340–356.PMC: 2845990

Leve, L. D., Harold, G. T., Ge, X., Neiderhiser, J. M., & Patterson, G. (2010). Refining intervention targets in family-based research: Lessons from quantitative behavioral genetics. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5, 516-526. PMC: 3008822

Leve, L. D., Kerr, D. C. R., & Harold, G. T. (in press). Young Adult Outcomes Associated with Teen Pregnancy Among High-Risk Girls in an RCT of Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care. Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse.