Who is Dr. Morrongiello?

Picture of Dr. Barbara Morrongiello
Dr. Barbara Morrongiello

As a scientist and practitioner (i.e., Registered Psychologist), I have interests in both basic and applied research. My basic research interests include advancing our knowledge of young children’s understanding of safety rules, determining how peers influence one another to engage in injury-risk behaviors during play, and identifying cognitive factors that increase children’s risk of being hit by cars when crossing streets on their own. My applied research interests are broad and include issues relevant to adolescent well being (e.g., peer and parental influences on risky driving), how parents and pre-adolescents negotiate about safety practices, determining the best approaches to teaching young children about injury risk and safety, and identifying factors that lead parents to adopt or ignore safety precautions that could prevent in-home injuries to young children. I work closely with community organizations (e.g., public health) and schools to implement evidence-based injury prevention programs that I’ve developed (e.g., ALTER for child safety, Cool 2 Be Safe playground safety program, Safe Peds pedestrian training program using Virtual Reality). I am committed to providing excellent research experiences for student trainees and to helping them learn how to design and implement research studies.