Dr. Biglan is a Senior Scientist at Oregon Research Institute, Principal Investigator of the Teacher Wellbeing Project, Director of the Center on Early Adolescence, and Co-Principal Investigator of the Promise Neighborhoods Research Consortium. He has been conducting research for the last 30 years on the prevention of adolescent problem behaviors. He has conducted numerous experimental evaluations of interventions to prevent tobacco, other drug use, high-risk sexual behavior, reading failure, and aggressive social behavior.

He and colleagues at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences published a book summarizing the epidemiology, cost, etiology, prevention, and treatment of youth with multiple problems (Biglan et al., 2004). He also co-authored Community-monitoring systems: Tracking and improving the well-being of America’s children and adolescents, a monograph published by the Society for Prevention Research (Mrazek, Biglan, & Hawkins, 2004), which is available electronically at www.preventionresearch.org. He is also author of the 1995 book, Changing cultural practices: A contextualist framework for intervention research, published by Context Press.

Dr. Biglan has participated in and has facilitated numerous Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) workshops both nationally and internationally. The idea that we can live successful, contented lives in spite of thoughts and feelings that usually hold us back from living the lives we want is of special interest to him. Recent research on acceptance-based approaches to dealing with stress indicates that people who attend workshops experience a renewed feeling of commitment toward healthier, more productive, and more caring lives.

Through presentations, discussion, and experiential exercises, the workshop teaches a new way to think about and deal with distressing thoughts and feelings and facilitates people getting clear on the valued directions they want to pursue. Participation in such a workshop is a first step toward using ACT skills in treatment and prevention. At the same time, the workshops will help people enrich their commitment to the important things they want to accomplish and develop some new strategies for pursuing valued directions—even in the presence of obstacles.

Dr. Biglan was an expert witness in the U. S. Department of Justice lawsuit against the tobacco companies from 2001 to 2005. He is Past President of the Society for Prevention Research and has been a board member since 1998.