Dr. Sonali Rajan is an associate professor of health education in the Department of Health and Behavior Studies at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Rajan’s interdisciplinary research is focused on identifying patterns of risk behaviors among adolescent youth; implementing and evaluating school-based health education programs; and identifying environmental-level characteristics that influence health behaviors among urban youth and communities.  In line with the approach of the “whole child”, her research embraces a comprehensive definition of health, recognizing that the synergy between multiple health issues and the surrounding environment together inform long-term outcomes. For the past several years, Dr. Rajan has worked on the implementation and evaluation of health education and behavioral health initiatives aimed to mitigate youth engagement in high-risk behaviors and promote positive youth development, particularly in urban school and community spaces disproportionately impacted by health and educational inequities. She has a line of research in the area of aggression and violence prevention in schools and is focused on supporting efforts aimed at reducing the presence of firearms in K-12 school settings. Her long–term vision for the prevention of gun violence, particularly among urban youth, reflects the importance of assessing risk at a behavioral and environmental–level and in the role that programming in schools and communities can play in mitigating this level of risk alongside shifts in policy. Dr. Rajan graduate with her Bachelor of Science in Biological and Environmental Engineering from Cornell University, her Master of Science in Applied Statistics from Teachers College, Columbia University, and her Doctor of Education in Health and Behavior Studies also from Teachers College. From 2010 – 2012 she was a NIDA-funded postdoctoral fellow at the National Development and Research Institutes.