Emma Adam

She/her/hers

Edwina S. Tarry Professor of Human Development and Social Policy
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research

Contact

ek-adam@northwestern.edu
2001 Sheridan Road, Rm 4450
Curriculum Vitae

Organization or Lab

COAST Lab

Academic Area

Human Development and Social Policy

Affiliated Center(s)

Institute for Policy Research

Research Interests

Using diary studies to examine how adolescents’ everyday experiences influence their moods, their stress biology, and their sleep; the implications of adolescent stress for adolescent and adult mental and physical health and academic outcomes; ethnic/racial and socioeconomic disparities in stress exposure; the implications of “stress disparities” for disparities in health and academic outcomes; secular/historical changes in adolescent stress and mental health, including the impacts of economic decline, the COVID-19 pandemic, political polarization, technology use and AI; interventions to reduce adolescent stress exposure and increase coping with stress.

Biography

Emma Adam is a developmental psychologist with an interest in applying theory and research on human development to informing policies and programs aimed at improving the wellbeing of children, adolescents, and young adults. She is an expert in the developmental psychobiology of stress and sleep. Adam studies how everyday experiences in the lives of children, adolescents and young adults impact their stress biology, with implications for emotional health, physical health and academic outcomes. She also examines social influences on sleep in children and adolescents, and the implications of variations in sleep timing and quality for health and performance. Her research projects have examined the role of stress, stress hormones and sleep in the development of mood and anxiety disorders in adolescents and young adults; racial/ethnic disparities in stress and the impact of perceived discrimination on stress hormones, sleep and health; the impact of early adverse relationship experiences on biological stress and health in young adults; and how variations in stress and sleep affect executive functioning and academic performance. Adam and her collaborators are currently implementing a series of randomized control trial intervention projects designed to reduce stress and or promote positive outcomes in youth, including a mindfulness intervention, a mentoring intervention, and an intervention designed to promote positive ethnic identity development in youth.

In addition to her Northwestern University affiliations, she is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Research in Child Development, the Society for Research on Adolescence, and the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology. She is the recipient of a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Post-doctoral Fellowship (2003–04), a William T. Grant Scholars Award (2004–09), and the Curt Richter Award from the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology (2013). She was recently President (2020-2023) and is currently Past-President of the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology (2023-2026).

Education

PhD, Child Psychology, University of Minnesota, 1998
MA, Public Policy, University of Chicago, 1998
MA, Applied Developmental Psychology, University of Toronto, 1992
BS, Psychology, University of Toronto, 1990

Awards and Honors

2026 – Past President, International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology
2023 – President, International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology
2020 – President-Elect, International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology
2017 – Lyle Spencer Research Award
2013 – Outstanding Professor Award, School of Education and Social Policy
2013 – Curt Richter Award, International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology
2009 – William T. Grant Scholars Award

Selected Publications

Yang, B., Collier Villaume, S., Ellison, R. L., Russak-Pribble, A., Umaña-Taylor, A. J., & Adam, E. K. (in press). Ethnoracial discrimination and subsequent cognitive functioning among adolescents: A two-month follow-up study. Journal of Adolescence.

Villaume, S. C., Sladek, M. R., Montgomery-Jones, S. M., Nwafor, E. E., Umaña-Taylor, A. J., & Adam, E. K. (2026). Out-of-school replication of the Identity Project: Randomized trial implementation and impacts on adolescent ethnic-racial identity development. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 106, 101977.

Chen, S., Yang, B., Zhou, Z., Vargas, T., Wang, Y., Santaularia Gomez, N. J., Adam, E. K., Haase, C. M., & Qu, Y. (2026). Hippocampal volume moderates the link between racial-ethnic discrimination and early adolescent depression. Clinical Psychological Science.

Garber, J., Chavira, D.A., Adam, E.K., Craske, M., McMahon, T., Williams, A., Abitante, G., Lanser, I., Pashtunyar, D.S., Chen, S., & Zinbarg, R. (2025). A randomized controlled trial of an online mindfulness program for adolescents at risk for internalizing problems. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

Koning, S., C. Kessler, T. Canli, E. Duman, E. Adam, R. Zinbarg, M. Craske, J. Stephens, S. Vrshek-Schallhorn. 2024. Early-life adversity severity, timing, and context type are associated with SLC6A4 methylation in emerging adults: Results from a prospective cohort study. Psychoneuroendocrinology170: 107181.

Del Toro, J., D. Bernard, R. Lee, and E. Adam. 2024. Framing resilience linked to parental ethnic-racial socialization as hidden: A hidden resilience conceptual framework. Social and Personality Psychology Compass 18(7): e12984.

Villaume, S., J. Stevens, M. Craske, R. Zinbarg, and E. Adam. 2024. Sleep and daily affect and risk for major depression: Day-to-day and prospective associations in late adolescence and early adulthood. Journal of Adolescent Health 74(2): 388–91.

Villaume, S., S. Chen, and E. Adam. 2023. Age disparities in prevalence of anxiety and depression among US adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. JAMA Network Open 6(11): e2345073–73.

Kessler, C., S. Vrshek-Schallhorn, S. Mineka, R. Zinbarg, M. Craske, and E. Adam. 2023. Experiences of adversity in childhood and adolescence and cortisol in late adolescence. Development and Psychopathology 35 (3): 1235–50.

Adam, E. 2023. Natural disasters as natural experiments: Lessons for human stress science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 120(44): e2316231120.

McMahon, T., S. Collier-Villaume, and E. Adam. 2023.Daily experiences and adolescent affective wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic: The CHESS model. Current Opinion in Psychology 101654.

Adam, E., S. Collier Villaume, S. Thomas, L. Doane, and K. Grant. 2023. Stress and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis activity in adolescence and early adulthood. In APA handbook of adolescent and young adult development, 55–72, eds. L. Crockett, G. Carlo, and J. Schulenberg (American Psychological Association).

Collier Villaume, S., J. Stephens, E. Nwafor, A. Umaña-Taylor, and E. Adam. 2021. High parental education protects against changes in adolescent stress and mood early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Adolescent Health 69(4): 549–56.

Adam, E., E. Hittner, S. Thomas, S. Collier Villaume, and E. Nwafor. 2020. Racial discrimination and ethnic racial identity in adolescence as modulators of HPA axis activity. Development and Psychopathology 32(5): 1669–84.

Adam, E., S. Collier Villaume, and E. Hittner. 2020. Reducing stress disparities:Shining new light on pathways to equity through the study of stress biology. In Confronting Inequality:How Policies and Practices Shape Children’s Opportunities, eds. L. Tach, R. Dunifon, & D. Miller (Washington: APA Books).