Jennie Noll

Jennie Noll is a Professor in the department of Human Development and Family Studies at the Pennsylvania State(PennState) University, with an affiliation with the Prevention Research Center. Prof. Noll hopes her research and work on child maltreatment will have an impact on policymakers’ decisions to allocate funds for the protection of abused and maltreated children — a population that, she says, is drastically underserved. Her work examines long-term effects of sexual abuse on development across childhood and into adulthood. She also studies child maltreatment as the first step in the pathways to teen pregnancy, as well as Internet and social media behavior that can put teens at risk for abuse. Noll, Chad Shenk and Idan Shalev, are the first of at least 12 network hires that will bolster the University’s research efforts in the area of child maltreatment. The network began in response to a recommendation from the Presidential Task Force on Child Maltreatment in the fall of 2012. Other research includes a longitudinal cohort study that examines the Internet behaviors of girls 12 to 15 years of age, specifically the ways adolescent females are vulnerable to becoming victims online. Noll received her doctorate from the University of Southern California. She joined the Penn State faculty from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, where she was a professor of pediatrics for eight years, and director of research, behavioral medicine and clinical psychology.