Associate Director of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods.

Stephen Buka is a developmental psychologist and epidemiologist whose work centers on the causes, prevention, and treatment of behavioral and learning disorders of children and adolescents. He has directed several major longitudinal studies examining the impact of birth complications, environmental hazards, and socioeconomic conditions on behavioral and intellectual development. He is currently co-director of two research projects, one examining the frequency of psychiatric disorders and treatment succe ss among drug-dependent adolescents, and the second investigating the influence of genetic predisposition and pre/perinatal complications on the development of schizophrenia. He serves as associate director of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, a large-scale study of community and individual influences on the origins of crime, aggression and substance use.

Buka has worked with many health, social service, and research agencies in New England. In Boston, he is a member of the Needs Assessment and Evaluation Task Forces of the Casey Initiative to revise the delivery of child and adolescent mental health serv ices for inner city populations. In Rhode Island, he has collaborated on the development of a comprehensive community-based system for surveillance, screening, referral and treatment of infants at-risk for developmental disorders.

Sc.D., 1988, Harvard School of Public Health