Patrick H. Tolan

Patrick H. Tolan is the Emeritus Charles S. Robb Professor at the University of Virginia in the School of Education and Human Development and Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois. He retired from UVA in 2022, where he also held an appointment as Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences.

He is the founding director and now emeritus director of Youth-Nex: The UVA Center to Promote Effective Youth Development. Prior to that, he was director of the Institute for Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois from 2000-2009. His work spanned theory, methods, practice, and policy during his 40-year career, beginning with a focus on multivariate models of development of risk and trajectories of delinquency and violence risk to the understanding of developmental ecology, particularly community factors, in how risk and resilience affected youth well-being. He shifted to focus on positive youth development in the early 2000s and for his tenure at UVA. Throughout his career, he emphasized large-scale randomized trials for advancing the prevention and promotion of healthy development.

Ph.D., University of Tennessee, 1983
M.A., University of Tennessee, 1980
B.A., Temple University, 1978

Curriculum Vitae