Biography

Damon is a Research Professor at Penn State’s Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center and directs the Social Investment Optimizer for the Evidence-to-Impact Collaborative. Throughout his career he has served as a methodologist and program evaluator in the behavioral sciences, mostly focused on family and youth interventions and prevention programs. He also has several years of experience with economic assessment to inform social policy as well as overseeing several project resource evaluations. Another focus of his research has been toward understanding the public costs associated with emotional and behavior disorders. His passion is to help support tools and processes that can lead to wider dissemination of cost-effective evidence-based programs to prevent problems and enhance well-being in at-risk children and families. For the past 18 years he has taught statistics and data analysis in the Departments of Health Policy and Administration and Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State and has helped lead methodological training programs for graduate students. Damon received his Ph.D. in Quantitative Methods from Vanderbilt University in 2002.