MOST: Optimizing Behavioral Interventions

Dr. Linda M. Collins is a distinguished professor at the NYU School of Global Public Health, where she focuses on the development and application of the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST), a groundbreaking framework designed to optimize and evaluate interventions across various fields, including public health, education, and criminal justice. With a strong foundation in engineering, behavioral science, and multivariate statistics, Dr. Collins aims to enhance intervention effectiveness, affordability, scalability, and efficiency through MOST. Her collaborative research spans critical areas such as HIV prevention, smoking cessation, and weight loss interventions. Dr. Collins has received funding from prominent institutions like the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Science Foundation, and her work has been published in numerous prestigious journals. An active contributor to the academic community, she has delivered over 100 invited presentations globally and has received several honors, including a Fulbright Specialist grant and the President’s Award from the Society for Prevention Research. Dr. Collins earned her B.A. from the University of Connecticut and her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, previously holding faculty positions at USC and Penn State before joining NYU.

Dr. Kate Guastaferro is an Assistant Research Professor in the Center for Healthy Children at New York University and an affiliate of the Child Maltreatment Solutions Network. Her research focuses on the intersection of prevention science and innovative methodologies for developing, optimizing, and evaluating interventions. As an expert in the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST), Dr. Guastaferro has applied this framework to address various public health issues, including STI prevention among first-year college students. She earned her PhD in Public Health from Georgia State University in 2016, where she was recognized with the Public Health Achievement Award for her academic accomplishments. Dr. Guastaferro's vision is to create effective, efficient, and scalable child maltreatment prevention programs by integrating her substantive and methodological interests. She has published extensively in prominent journals and has previously held a research position at Pennsylvania State University, where she contributed to significant trials aimed at preventing child sexual abuse.