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Jennifer M. Grossman, Ph.D.

Research Scientist

Jennifer M. Grossman is a Research Scientist, focusing on adolescent development, racial and ethnic identity, and sexual health and risk-taking. She is the co-Principal Investigator (PI) on a grant to evaluate Planned Parenthood’s comprehensive middle school sex education program, which aims to promote healthy sexual development and reduce sexual risk-taking. She is currently leading a related project, “Family Communication, Culture, and Gender in a Middle School Sex Education Program” supported by the 35th Anniversary Fund at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW). This project capitalizes on the larger Planned Parenthood evaluation study, to conduct in-depth investigation of how parents/guardians and teens talk about sex and relationships, the role of gender and extended family communication in these interactions, and how families respond to family activities through a sex education program.

Dr. Grossman also serves as an evaluator of Peggy McIntosh’s SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) program. She has completed projects related to adolescent religiosity and sexual risk-taking, and racial/ethnic identity and experiences. She was co-PI on a National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) grant investigating the construct of shared religiosity with family and its relationships to adolescents’ and emerging adults’ sexual risk-taking behavior (Anne Noonan, PI). She also worked with the Mixed Ancestry project, and published two peer-reviewed papers with WCW Research Scientist Linda Charmaraman that focus on racial-ethnic centrality of adolescents from different racial groups.

She participated in the project “A Social-Ecological Study of Gender, Relationships, and High School STEM” (Michelle Porche, PI), and is currently working on a manuscript that explores racial and gender barriers to STEM engagement among urban adolescents. From this work, she developed a study “Girls’ Engagement with STEM Career Options: A Path toward Gender Equity,” supported by The Harold Benenson Memorial Research Fund. Her earlier work addressed issues of racism and relational health among Chinese American adolescents. Specifically, projects examined experiences of peer discrimination and associations between discrimination, peer relationships, and social competence.

Dr. Grossman joined the Wellesley Centers for Women in August 2006 as a NICHD postdoctoral research fellow. She received her B.A. from Oberlin College, her M.A. in counseling at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Boston College in 2005. In addition to her research work, Jenny is a Licensed Psychologist. She completed her clinical internship and postdoctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital, working primarily with children and adolescents. Her clinical experiences inform her research work and enhance her commitment to address mental health inequities through research, program development, and systemic change in support of healthy youth development.

Jennifer Grossman’s current projects:

Measuring the Impact of a Middle School Comprehensive Sex Education Curriculum

This project is a contract with Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts to conduct a randomized control evaluation of the Get Real middle school sexual education curriculum. 

An in-depth look at teen/parent sexual communication

This project is an in-depth qualitative investigation of teen/parent communication about sex and relationships, which provides an in-depth look at families participating in the evaluation of middle school education program (above). It includes interviews with 32 teen/parent pairs who are participants in the Get Real middle school sex education program.

Evaluator, National SEED Project on Inclusive Curriculum (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity

This project, funded by the W. K. Kellogg foundation, will expand the National SEED Project on Inclusive Curriculum and make it accessible to a wider audience. This project includes a longitudinal evaluation of the influence of this intervention on teachers and students.



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