Ryan J. Watson

Associate Professor

Associate Director, Center for Research on Sexual Violence and Empowerment

My program of research is focused on health outcomes, in particular HIV and substance use disparities, among vulnerable youth and young adults. Motivated by the urgent need to reduce the inequities in health for vulnerable populations, I have focused my scholarship on youth and young adults, their relationships within family and school contexts, and their health experiences.

Collaborating with a strong team of scholars, I have been awarded more than $3 million in federal funding as PI and published more than 195 peer-reviewed papers. I conduct all my scholarship in the spirit of better understanding the mechanisms that drive well-documented injustices in health, school, and community experiences for vulnerable individuals. In particular, I have recently focused on health experiences (e.g., substance use and disordered eating) among adolescents (funded by an NIH R03) and emerging adults. Related to this line of research, I have utilized data from my team’s national survey, a dataset collected in 2017 of 17,000 youth aged 13-17 from across the United States. More recently in 2022, my team collected a new dataset of over 17,000 youth aged 13-18. A complimentary body of research (funded by an NIH K01) focuses on preventing health disparities (e.g., HIV) through prevention and intervention strategies (e.g., Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis [PrEP]) attuned to intersecting social positions. Most recently, I have been exploring premature PrEP discontinuation among men via an NIH R01.

I am the Associate Director of the Center for Research on Sexual Violence and Empowerment. You can find more about our research projects at our center webpage.

I have held multiple leadership roles in the Society of Research on Adolescence and I am a consulting editor for four academic journals.

Please inquire if you are interested in applying to work with me as a PhD student in our HDFS program, as I expect to admit a student for the 2027-2028 academic year.