Research Areas

Eduardo De La Vega

The Applied Social Psychology (ASCP) program at FIU includes several unique and specialized research areas. We have provided summaries of some of these current areas below. Our faculty have published numerous research articles, secured grants and teach courses related to these topics. However, these are not separate or isolated areas of focus—our research areas often intersect and inform one another. Faculty regularly collaborate across projects, reflecting shared and overlapping interests.

We strongly encourage you to visit each Core ASCP faculty member’s departmental and lab webpage to learn more about their specific projects, publications, and the work of current doctoral students.

  • Abuse & Violence
    • Culturally constructed meanings of violence
    • Frontline workers' perceptions (e.g. clinicians, Police, Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners [SANEs], medical providers)
    • Human Trafficking/ Commercial Sexual Exploitation
    • Intimate Partner Violence
    • Investigative interviewing
    • Prevention and education efforts
    • Technology Faciliated Abuse (e.g. cyber stalking, online harrassment)
    • Vulnerable witnesses and victims
  • Community Engagement
    • Community Based Organization collaboration & capacity building
    • Community centered dissemination processes
    • Community perceptions of police use of force
    • Eye witness testimonies cross culturally
    • Survivor informed research
  • Contextual Influences
    • Resource limited communities
    • Globalization (Australia, Colombia, Canada, India, Peru, Turkey)
    • Age (Adolescence, Emerging Adulthood & Established Adulthood
    • Biases in real-world investigations
    • Media & Digital Spaces
  • Cross Cultural Theories & Methods
    • Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Paradigms
    • Intersectionality
    • Complex Systems Analysis
    • Mixed Methods
    • Qualitative
    • Quantiative 
  • Health Outcomes
    • Health education/ training  (e.g. clinicians, medical providers, college students, SANEs)
    • Mental health cross culturally
    • Health education & literacy
    • Sexual health decision making
    • Social determinants of health