Joseph P. Allen is an American psychologist and academic and the Hugh P. Kelly Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia.
[1] Allen was born on October 30, 1958, in Washington, DC, and grew up in Oxon Hill, Maryland.
[6] His research focuses on the predictors and long-term outcomes of social development processes from adolescence into adulthood and he is currently 25 years into a 30-year study on these topics.
He also develops and examines socially-focused interventions for adolescents designed to improve long-term academic and mental health outcomes.
[7][8][9][10][11] Together with Claudia W. Allen, he is the author of Escaping the Endless Adolescence: How We Can Help Our Teenagers Grow Up Before They Grow Old..[12] In 2016, he founded The Connection Project, a small group intervention for high school and college students that has been documented to reduce loneliness and depressive symptoms and enhance a sense of belonging.