Esteemed Speaker
Mary Madden
Full Bio
Mary Madden, Ph.D., is a social science researcher and President of Dr. Madden & Associates, a research and evaluation firm. Her work is focused on supporting the health and wellbeing of adolescents and young adults. She has extensive experience designing and leading research and program evaluations, as well as developing prevention programs.
Dr. Madden currently serves as the Associate Director of the Delaware Education Research & Development Center at the University of Delaware. While at her former institution, the University of Maine, she was a Co-Director of the National Collaborative for Hazing Research and Prevention and an Associate Research Professor in the College of Education and Human Development. In collaboration with Dr. Elizabeth Allan, she designed and implemented the Hazing Prevention Consortium, a project of the National Collaborative that partnered with nine college and universities to identify effective hazing prevention strategies. Dr. Madden directed the National Study on Student Hazing and co-authored the National Agenda for Hazing Prevention as well as articles on hazing, the latest of which was published in the International Journal for Adolescent Medicine and Health. She has presented the research findings at numerous regional and national conferences.
Dr. Madden is committed to ensuring that her research and evaluation studies inform effective practices, programs, and policies that enhance the wellbeing of individuals, groups, and communities. Her past work includes an evaluation of the Maine Center for Disease Prevention and Controls high school suicide prevention program, a component of which is recognized as an evidence-based practice by the National Registry of Evidence-Based Prevention Programs. She collaborated with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to publish and disseminate the findings through an Actionable Knowledge Project, which provides guidance for practitioners on how to use the evaluation findings to make research-based program decisions. She has also co-created curriculum and training to guide adults in utilizing a strength-based approach to working with adolescent girls.
Dr. Madden has a B.S. in Health and Family Life Education, a M.Ed. in Gender and Sexuality Education, and an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. from the University of Maine in Education, Human Development, and Women's Studies. Prior to pursuing her doctorate she designed and implemented prevention programs aimed at reducing pregnancy and HIV among adolescents.