Laurence Steinberg, Ph.D., is the Distinguished University Professor and Laura H. Carnell Professor of Psychology at Temple University. He graduated from Vassar College in 1974 and from Cornell University in 1977, where he received his Ph.D. in human development and family studies. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, former President of the Society for Research on Adolescence, and the current President of the Division of Developmental Psychology of the American Psychological Association. Dr. Steinberg has been on the editorial boards of many major journals, including Developmental Psychology and Child Development, where he served as Associate Editor. He is a member of the National Academy of Science's Board on Children, Youth, and Families and its Committee on the Science of Adolescent Health and Behavior, and has been a frequent consultant to state and federal agencies and lawmakers on child labor, secondary education, and juvenile justice policy. His work was cited numerous times by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 2005 landmark decision that abolished the juvenile death penalty.

Dr. Steinberg is one of the most highly cited scholars in the field of developmental psychology. His own research has focused on a range of topics in the study of contemporary adolescence, including parent-adolescent relationships, adolescent employment, high school reform, and juvenile crime and justice. He has been the recipient of numerous honors, including the John P. Hill Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Study of Adolescence, given by the Society for Research on Adolescence, the Society for Adolescent Medicine's Gallagher Lectureship, and the American Psychological Association's Urie Bronfenbrenner award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society. Dr. Steinberg also has been recognized for excellence in research and teaching by the University of California, the University of Wisconsin, and Temple University, where he was honored in 1994 as one of that university's Great Teachers. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in adolescence for more than 30 years and has served as the doctoral advisor to more than 30 students, many of whom have gone on to become influential scholars in the field of adolescence in their own right.

In addition to Adolescence, Dr. Steinberg is the author or co-author of more than 200 scholarly articles on growth and development during the teenage years, as well as the books You and Your Adolescent: A Parent's Guide for Ages 10 to 20 (with Ann Levine); When Teenagers Work: The Psychological and Social Costs of Adolescent Employment (with Ellen Greenberger); Crossing Paths: How Your Child's Adolescence Triggers Your Own Crisis (with Wendy Steinberg); Studying Minority Adolescents: Conceptual, Methodological, and Theoretical Issues (co-edited with Vonnie McLoyd), Beyond the Classroom: Why School Reform Has Failed and What Parents Need to Do (with Bradford Brown and Sanford Dornbusch), the Handbook of Adolescent Psychology (co-edited with Richard Lerner), and The Ten Basic Principles of Good Parenting.