Linda M Wagener Author & Editor

Eugene C. Roehlkepartain is senior adviser in the office of the president, Search Institute, Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he provides leadership for research, publishing, training, and consulting projects that focus on spiritual development, as well as the institute’s work with congregations of all faiths. Roehlkepartain has written more than 25 books and reports, and numerous newspaper, magazine, and journal articles on youth development, families and parenting, community building, religious and spiritual development, and related issues. In addition to editing this volume, he is a coeditor of Religious Perspectives on Spirituality in Childhood and Adolescence (2005). He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and religion from Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Pamela Ebstyne King serves as research assistant professor of psychology in the Center for Research in Child and Adolescent Development in the School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. Her primary research and teaching interests include positive youth development, spiritual and moral development, and theological perspectives of development. She is particularly interested in enabling thriving through families, congregations, schools, and youth-serving organizations. Ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA), Dr. King has a background in child, youth, and adult ministry; a master’s of divinity; and Ph.D. in family studies from Fuller Theological Seminary. She was a visiting scholar under the Divinity Faculty at Cambridge University and did her postdoctoral work at the Stanford Center on Adolescence. Dr. King is a coauthor of The Reciprocating Self: Human Development in Theological Perspective (2005). Her research has been published in Developmental Psychology, Applied Developmental Science, the Journal of Early Adolescence, and the Journal of Psychology and Christianity.  Linda M. Wagener is associate professor of psychology and associate dean of the graduate school of psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary, where she is also codirector of the Center for Research in Child and Adolescent Development. Her research interests include positive youth development, with a particular focus on the spiritual, religious, and moral development of adolescence. Dr. Wagener is currently a principal investigator on an adolescent violence prevention grant from the United States Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Peter L. Benson is president of Search Institute, which provides leadership, knowledge, and resources to promote healthy children, youth, and communities. He has written extensively in adolescent development, altruism, spiritual development, and thriving in adolescence. He serves as principal investigator for Search Institute’s initiative on spiritual development in childhood and adolescence. In 1991, he received the William James Award for career contributions to the psychology of religion from the American Psychological Association. Dr. Benson is the author or editor of numerous books and articles, including Developmental Assets and Asset-Building Communities, All Kids Are Our Kids: What Communities Must Do to Raise Caring and Responsible Children and Adolescents, and Religion on Capitol Hill: Myths and Realities. He is general editor for the Search Institute Series on Developmentally Attentive Community and Society, published by Springer. He holds a doctorate in experimental social psychology from the University of Denver.