Dr. Waasdorp is a Research Assistant Professor in Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Director of Research for School-Based Bullying and Social Emotional Learning for the Center for Violence Prevention at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Her research focuses on aggression and bullying, as well as the design and assessment of school-based interventions related to reducing bullying and aggression and improving children’s social and emotional skills. At CHOP, she contributes to the design and evaluation of two interventions (PRAISE and Friend to Friend) aimed at reducing aggression and bullying for urban elementary school youth, and a universal anti-bullying assembly, Free2B, for middle school youth. These programs are part of CHOP’s Violence Prevention Initiative.

In her previous work as a research scientist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Dr. Waasdorp was co-principal investigator on a National Institute of Justice grant to design and evaluate the Bullying Class Room Check-Up, a program that addresses bullying using an innovative, transportable training simulator combined with an evidence-based teacher-coaching model, in order to increase teachers’ prevention, detection, and responses to bullying. This work has continued now that she is at CHOP. She also focuses on cyberbullying, building children’s social and emotional skills, and reducing aggression among young school-aged children.  

Dr. Waasdorp publishes on school-based bullying prevention/intervention, forms of bullying and victimization, children’s coping with bullying, teachers’ and parents’ responses to bullying, positive social and emotional development, and the impact of a school’s climate on a child’s development. She also has authored numerous book chapters on bullying and cyberbullying. 

BA, Muhlenberg College (Psychology), 2002

MSEd, University of Pennsylvania (Counseling and Psychological Services), 2003

PhD, University of Delaware (Human Development), 2008

Fellowship, Johns Hopkins University (Prevention/Intervention), 2010

Director of Research for School-Based Bullying and Social Emotional Learning

Research Assistant Professor in Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Center for Violence Prevention Research Scientist & Center for Violence Prevention Research Scholar, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Society for Prevention Research, 2008-

Society for Research in Child Development, 2008-

Society for Research in Adolescence, 2009-

Child, Intervention, Prevention and Services (CHIPS) Fellow NIMH, 2010

Society for Prevention Research Early Career Travel Award, 2014

Article of the year in School Psychology Review presented at the annual National Association for School Psychologists (NASP) conference, 2020

Distinguished Peer Reviewer for Prevention Science Journal, 2018, 2020

How Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Can Help Prevent Bullying (2018 webinar given for the Children's Safety Network)

Children Bullied Over Their Weight Are at Greater Risk of Internalizing the Abuse (2018 blog post for Center for Injury Research Prevention)

Flipping the switch: How techonology can help to prevent and address bullying (2018 blog post for Cambridge University Press)

Anti-Bullying Intervention for Teachers Shows Positive, Short-Term Outcomes (2020 article for National Institute of Justice)