mary ann pentz

Mary Ann Pentz is a Professor of Preventive Medicine and the Director of the Institute for Prevention Policy Research

For over a decade, Dr. Pentz’s research has focused on community and policy approaches to tobacco, alcohol, and drug abuse prevention in youth. She has published widely in psychology, public health, and medical journals on the use of multi-component approaches to community-based prevention that include mass media.Her findings from longitudinal prevention trials contributed to the formulation of a U.S. Senate bill, and use of evidence-based criteria for appropriating funds for prevention under the Safe and Drug Free Schools Act.

Dr. Pentz has chaired the NIDA Epidemiology and Prevention study section, and has served on the evaluation advisory boards for CSAP’s Community Partnership grants program and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Fighting Back Initiative. She also served on the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s Campaign Design Expert panel to design the new anti-drug abuse media campaign that Congress has just approved.

She received her baccalaureate in Psychology from Hamilton College and her doctorate in Psychology from Syracuse University in 1978.