Dr. Robert McMahon

Dr. Robert McMahon is the founder and Director of the Institute for the Reduction of Youth Violence at SFU. He has been a Professor in the Department of Psychology and the LEEF B.C. Leadership Chair in Proactive Approaches to Reducing Risk for Violence among Children and Youth since 2010. He is also a Senior Scientist in the Brain, Behaviour, and Development theme of the B.C Children’s Hospital Research Institute (BCCHRI). 

Dr. McMahon’s primary research and clinical interests concern the assessment, treatment, and prevention of conduct problems and other problem behaviour in youth, especially in the context of the family. He is a principal investigator on the Fast Track project, which is a large, multisite collaborative study on the prevention of antisocial behaviour in school-aged children that began in 1990 and continues today. It is the largest prevention trial of its type ever funded by the U.S. Federal government.

Dr. McMahon is co-author of Helping the Noncompliant Child: Family-Based Treatment for Oppositional Behaviour (Guilford Press, 1981, 2003) and of a variety of scientific articles, edited books, chapters, and reviews. He is a Past Editor-in-Chief of the journal Prevention Science.