Laura Widman Author

Laura Widman is an Associate Professor of Psychology at North Carolina State University, where she has an active program of research focused on adolescent sexuality, with a particular interest in developing and testing technology-based programs to reduce HIV/STDs and improve the sexual health of youth. Dr. Widman has authored more than 50 manuscripts and book chapters, and she has presented her work to national and international audiences. After more than a decade of teaching undergraduate human sexuality courses using the OUR SEXUALITY textbook, Dr. Widman is delighted to be joining the authorship team to contribute to the 14th edition. She has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and postdoctoral training in HIV/STD prevention. The integration of psychological, social and biological components of human sexuality in this text is facilitated by the authors' combined academic and professional backgrounds. With sadness we dedicate this 14th edition to Dr. Robert Crooks, who passed away at the end of the last revision. Dr. Crooks had a Ph.D. in Psychology. In addition to graduate training that stressed Clinical and Physiological Psychology, he had a considerable background in Sociology. His involvement with teaching human sexuality classes at the university, college and medical school levels spanned over two decades. Dr. Crooks and his wife, Sami Tucker, were involved in the establishment and implementation of HIV/AIDS intervention programs in two areas of Kenya. For more than a decade, their work with these projects included designing a research strategy for assessing behavior change, developing a peer educator-based educational strategy and conducting training sessions for Kenyan peer educator staff. Karla Baur has retired as co-author after 13 editions. A licensed clinical social worker in private practice, she specializes in couples and sex therapy. In addition to providing clinical supervision, seminars and lectures for other mental health therapists and professional groups, Baur has taught human sexuality and female sexuality classes at Portland Community College, Portland State University and Clark College. At Oregon Health Sciences University, she taught a human sexuality course and coached medical students in taking sexual histories with patients. She was also involved in a six-week program in Kenya to train HIV/AIDS prevention peer educators. Certified as a sex educator, therapist and sex therapy supervisor by the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists, Baur has a master's degree in Social Work and her advanced academic work stressed clinical training.