Since our humble beginnings in 2014 as the UMaine Peer Lab, through today as the Birch Lab Group at the University at Buffalo, we’ve conducted tons of research on youth, relationships, development, intervention, and more!
Coming Soon!
Stay tuned for news on our upcoming projects. If you’d like to participate in the future, check out our “Participate in Research” tab. If you’re interested in joining our lab as a researcher, check out our “Join the Lab” tab.
Understanding Maine Adolescents through Talking, Emotions, & Reactivity (UMatter) | 2023-2024 | UMaine
A follow-up from the BIRCH Project, UMatter is aimed at better understanding how teen friendship similarities may be related to helpful and unhelpful emotional outcomes, friendship characteristics, and heart rate reactivity. The goal of the study is to make youth friendship most helpful throughout development. A subsample of BIRCH participants were selected based on previous indications of emotional struggles on past surveys to best help youth dealing with these types of struggles.
Adolescent Consent to Mental Health Care Study | [Timeline] | UMaine
As part of Cassandra Rowan’s dissertation research, Maine youth were interviewed about their decisions about mental health care to better understand what characteristics contribute to decision-making and how those characteristics change with age. This research hopes to inform our ability to provide mental healthcare to teenagers in the future, such as evidence-based policies around consent to mental healthcare.
The BIRCH Project | 2020-2022 | UMaine
Supported by a grant from the National Insitute of Mental Health (NIMH), the BIRCH Project partnered with local middle and high schools for a multi-method, longitudinal study of risk and resilience in adolescence. A major focus of BIRCH was to better understand the protective power of interpersonal relationships in supporting adolescents’ academic achievement, social adjustment, and emotional well-being. Partner schools received professional development and consultation from the BIRCH team.