Education:

2002, PhD, Clinical Psychology, Bowling Green State University

1999, MA, Clinical Psychology, Bowling Green State University

1995, BA, Biopsychology, Oberlin College

Yuan NP, Koss MP, Polacca M and Goldman D. (2006). Risk factors for physical assault and rape among Native American tribes. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 21, 1566-1590.

Koss MP, Yuan NP, Dightman D, Prince RJ, Polacca M, Sanderson B, Goldman D. 2003. Impact of childhood exposures on alcohol disorders among Native American Tribes. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 25(3), 238-244.

Nicole Yuan, PhD, is an assistant professor at The University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. Her current research focuses on explanatory risk and resiliency models of alcoholism and violence among American Indians with emphasis on genetic, individual, community, and cultural determinants.

In 2006, Dr. Yuan was awarded a 5-year K23 Mentored Research Career Development Award funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Her career plan includes mentoring and training in alcohol, genetic, and Native American mental health epidemiology, research, and policy and a three-phase research plan. Her research plan consists of: 1) secondary analyses of data from the Ten Tribes Study and other gene-environment interaction (GxE) studies; 2) pilot study with the tribes; and 3) development of a comprehensive follow-up study with the tribes. The Ten Tribes Study, a National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) funded contract, was designed to determine prevalence rates of alcoholism and measure genetic and environmental vulnerability factors among American Indian tribes.

Dr. Yuan is also the Principal Investigator of the Sexual Violence Prevention and Education Program funded by the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS). The goal is to increase the accessibility of current research and practice information to ADHS and funded agencies in Arizona by maintaining a Web site and responding to requests related to sexual violence primary prevention. 

Dr. Yuan was trained as a clinical psychologist and is currently licensed in Arizona. She received a master’s degree and doctorate degree from Bowling Green State University. She has worked at the UA since 2002.