Dr. Kuykendall earned a diploma in nursing, Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry, Master’s Degree in Health Education and Ph.D. in Health Studies. Her area of expertise is evaluating youth violence prevention programs, specifically programs to prevent or reduce youth gun carrying, bullying, and domestic violence. Program funders include Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities, Children’s Trust Fund, William Penn Foundation, Pennsylvania Department of Education, the Barra Foundation, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Institute of Catholic Bioethics at Saint Joseph’s University. From 2001-2007, Kuykendall (Black) conducted an independent evaluation of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program. During this project, Kuykendall spent hundreds of hours surveying students and observing behaviors at lunch and recess. Kuykendall developed several ways to measure violence and program fidelity. To date, Kuykendall co-authored eight peer reviewed journal articles, two conference proceedings, and over twenty professional conference presentations. Her book, Bullying, published by ABC-CLIO, presents bullying from a medical perspective, discussing causes of aggressive behavior, why victims respond in the ways that they do, evidence-based programs and future directions in preventing youth violence. Kuykendall is currently working with Institute for Safe Families to reduce children’s exposure to domestic violence.

• R.N. Thomas Jefferson University 1977-1981 Diploma in Nursing
• B.Sc. (Hons) Plymouth Polytechnic, England 1985-1988 Chemistry and Biology
• M.S. Saint Joseph’s University 1992-1996 Health Education
• Ph.D. Temple University 1997-2001 Health Studies

• 1981-1982 Agency Nurse, Philadelphia, PA
• 1982-1989 State Registered Nurse, United Kingdom
• 1990-1993 Registered Nurse, Intensive Care Unit, Philadelphia and Abington, PA
• 1993-1994 Clinical Instructor of medical-surgical nursing, Abington School of Nursing, Abington, PA
• 1995-1996 Clinical Research Coordinator, SmithKline Beecham
• 1998-2000 Teaching Assistant of Health Sciences, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
• 2000-2005 Adjunct Professor of Public Health, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
• 2002-2004 Visiting Professor of Health Services, Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, PA
• 2004-2011 Assistant Professor of Health Services, Saint Joseph’s University
• 2011-present Chair and Associate Professor of Health Services, Saint Joseph’s University

• IHS 331 Statistics and Research Methodology
• IHS 2481 Health and the School-aged Child
• IHS 253 Nutrition: Health and Disease
• IHS 255 Human Sexuality and Disease
• IHS 262 Violence and Aggression
• HED/HAD 4025 Health Services Research

Bullying (2012) in the series of Health and Medical Issues Today, published by ABC-CLIO Greenwood Press, Colorado.

Practitioner recommended practices for children exposed to domestic violence, co-authored with M.B. Davis and S. Dempsey (2010) in Health Promotion Practice.

Translating the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program into real world practice authored with E. Washington, V. Trent, P. Harner, & E. Pollock (2010) Health Promotion Practice, DOI: 10.1177/1524839908321562.

Evaluation of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program in nine urban schools: Effective practices and next steps authored with E. Washington Educational Research Service Spectrum (2008)

From childhood exposure to adult victimization: Female intergenerational transmission of domestic violence victimization (2009) authored with A. Hausman, S.H. Dempsey, M.B. Davis, & S. Robbins. Family Violence Prevention & Health Practice E-journal available at: http://endabuse.org/health/ejournal/

Adolescents’ views of guns in a high-violence community authored with A. Hausman in Journal of Adolescent Research.  (2008)

Evaluation of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program: How it can work for inner city kids. Scientific proceedings at 2007 National Conference on Safe Schools and Communities, Washington, D.C. Available at: http://gwired.gwu.edu/hamfish/merlin-cgi/p/downloadFile/d/19136/n/off/ot...

Using bullying incident density to evaluate the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program authored with E. Jackson in School Psychology International Journal (2007)

Colorimetric and gas chromatographic determination of total fluoride in toothpastes containing ionic and covalent fluoride authored with G.P. Matthews in Analytical Proceedings (1989)

Theses
A Phenomenological Description of Youth Firearm Carrying (UMI Number 3057059)
Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Alice Hausman

Stress Levels and Dream Interpretation
Thesis Advisors: Drs. Michelle Rowe and Kathleen Quinlisk

The Properties and Actions of Desensitizing Toothapastes
Thesis Advisor: Dr. G. Peter Matthews

Youth Violence Prevention

Advancements in biology, chemistry, genetics, neurology, psychology, and sociology have opened the doors to new treatment possibilities. Patients can now expect doctors to prescribe the most effective and safe treatment available. These same scientific advancements can be applied to other long-standing public health problems, such as youth violence. Psychological and neurological research shows that children learn by watching others. Specialized motor neurons light up when children watch adults perform a behavior. It doesn’t matter whether the skill is positive, such as learning how to ride a bike, or negative, such as throwing an object in anger. To complicate the issue, youth do not have a fully developed brain. They use different areas of their brain to problem solve than the adult brain uses. Youth act on gut instincts, not fully contemplating the consequences of possible actions. These findings explain why injuries are one of the leading causes of death for young people in America. My research focuses on using medical science to develop the effective and safe youth violence prevention programs. Partnering with local practitioners, parents, teachers, healthcare professionals, children, and program funders, we select programs that have a strong scientific foundation and suggest promising outcomes, pilot the programs in local communities and evaluate the programs for effectiveness and safety. Our goal is to eliminate programs that do not work (or cause more harm than good) and to promote the use of evidence-based programs and practices in local communities.