Rate My Professor Ivy Defoe

Ivy N. Defoe is a tenured assistant professor in the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Amsterdam, within the Programme group Forensic Child and Youth Care Sciences. She specializes in developmental psychology, with a focus on adolescent risk-taking and related behaviors. Defoe obtained her PhD cum laude in Developmental Psychology from Utrecht University in 2016. During her doctoral studies, she conducted internships funded by a Fulbright scholarship at Harvard University's Affective Neuroscience and Development Lab and the University of Cambridge's Institute of Criminology. Following her PhD, she served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, researching youth impulsivity and behavioral disorders, and later at the University of Twente's Department of Psychology of Conflict, Risk and Safety. Additional appointments include visiting professor at Masaryk University, incoming visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge, editorial fellow at Psychological Bulletin, and member of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the Psychonomic Society.

Defoe's research examines the development of maladaptive risk behaviors in youth, including delinquency, substance use, and impulsivity, integrating neurobiological, psychological, and ecological factors. She authored the Developmental Neuro-ecological Risk-taking Model (DNERM), published in Developmental Review in 2021, which elucidates how cultural, online, physical, and social environments influence risk-taking during adolescence. Key publications include a meta-analysis titled 'A Meta-Analysis on Age Differences in Risky Decision Making: Adolescents Versus Children and Adults' in Psychological Bulletin (2015); 'Cascades from Early Adolescent Impulsivity to Late Adolescent Antisocial Personality Disorder and Alcohol Use Disorder' in the Journal of Adolescent Health (2022); 'Disentangling Longitudinal Relations Between Youth Cannabis Use, Peer Cannabis Use, and Conduct Problems' in Addiction (2019); and 'Heightened Adolescent Risk-Taking? Insights From Lab Studies on Age Differences in Decision-Making' in Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2019). Her work employs longitudinal, experimental, and meta-analytic methods to explore peer, sibling, and parental influences, online risks, self-control, child rights, and cross-national differences, contributing significantly to understanding adolescent development and informing prevention strategies.