Sarah Chilenski has worked in prevention research and evaluation for more than 25 years, focusing on the role that communities play in youth development and how community programs can be a source of support for those in need.

Dr. Chilenski focuses on how communities, schools, and universities can collaborate in the pursuit of quality youth prevention programming. Her current applied community research projects focus on:

• community collaboration
• technical assistance for community coalition models supporting public health
• dissemination of evidence-based programs and sustainability, and
• community context-related youth outcomes.

She has played major research roles in projects such as PROSPER and Communities That Care, and leads the process evaluation for the Evidence2Success® framework. The recently-funded Coalition Check-Up project will further her work by testing the feasibility of proactive, regular, relationship-based, data-informed, and coalition-driven technical assistance system for community prevention and health promotion coalitions. She aims to examine youth outcomes of community prevention activities while using data to help empower participating communities.

Dr. Chilenski has published more than 30 peer-reviewed articles, 3 policy reports, one book chapter, numerous project evaluation reports, and given and chaired or participated in many roundtable discussions, panels, presentations, and symposia at professional meetings. She has served as a regular reviewer for top-tier peer review journals and is on several external committees.