Schmitt Russell Research Lecture
Substance Use and the Transition to Adulthood: Becoming an Adult, Becoming a Scientist
Jennifer Maggs, professor of human development and family studies, will present the lecture on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026 at 3 p.m. in 102 Marriott Foundation Building at Penn State University Park. A reception will follow at 4 p.m. Both are free and open to the public. Persons with disabilities who anticipate needing accommodations or who have questions about physical access may contact Heather Kurzinger at hms16@psu.edu or call 814-865-1429 in advance of the program.
Maggs is the recipient of the 2025 Pauline Schmitt Russell Distinguished Research Career Award, which honors a distinguished faculty member whose career-long research has had a profound impact on a specific field of study.
About the lecture
Maggs' lecture will discuss the insights she has gleaned from her career studying the developmental impacts of adolescent substance use on the transition to adulthood, while also mentoring the next generation of developmental scientists.
She will discuss how her developmental approach examines early experimentation with substance use and how it both reflects and impacts the many dramatic changes in adolescents' bodies, brains, relationships and ambitions. Further, she will explore how young people actively navigate these changes and challenges within different contexts, asking what relationships, structures and interventions can improve adolescents' development and experiences.
Additionally, Maggs will share her passion for helping early career scientists refine their identities, gain skills, build collaborations, experiment with new roles and become scientific leaders through a similar process of development in context.
About the presenter
Jennifer Maggs is a professor of human development and family studies at Penn State. Her research studies the causes, consequences, and prevention of substance use and harms across the transition to adulthood. Specifically, how do alcohol, nicotine, and cannabis use fit into young people’s lives? What happens when they use substances? And what strategies can reduce negative effects?
Continuously supported by the National Institutes of Health since 2002, she uses both intensive measures and population-based epidemiological approaches to understand situational and developmental change.
Taking a developmental perspective, her work examines substance use in the context of developmental transitions like puberty, changing relationships with parents and peers, and school and work accomplishments. A major challenge is that these links are complex and difficult to predict — healthy developmental changes motivate experimentation, and substance use both facilitates and derails role transitions, well-being, and health.
Mentoring the next generation of scientists and following their impactful careers is her passion. More than 30 doctoral and postdoctoral students who were mentored in her lab now lead independent scholarly careers in human development, epidemiology, and prevention science. Since 2019, she has co-led Penn State’s NIDA-funded Substance Use Prevention and Methodology training program, supporting more than 12 pre- and post-doctoral scientists each year.
Maggs’ career reflects a longstanding commitment to understanding development in context and to helping early-career scientists develop the focus, stamina, relationships, and agency to navigate meaningful scientific careers.