Duane E. Thomas is an assistant professor of the Applied Psychology and Human Development Division at the Graduate School of Education (GSE) at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his PhD in Clinical Psychology, with specialization in children and adolescents, from the Pennsylvania State University in 2003.

Before his recent appointment, Dr. Thomas was a pediatric/clinical psychology intern at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and completed postdoctoral training at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, where as a W.K. Kellogg Fellow he conducted community-based participatory research with schools and after-school programs to curtail youth violence and school disengagement in urban, low-income neighborhoods.

His research interests include contextual risk influences on the development of school conduct problems and concomitant academic difficulties for children, particularly the affects of peer processes and teacher practices in classrooms.  His research also focuses on cultural protective factors that preempt this development and the promotion of prevention efforts, at classroom and community levels, to foster healthy psychosocial functioning and resilience in children and youth attending schools in economically-disadvantaged, urban, public school districts.

In addition to his duties with GSE, Dr. Thomas is affiliated with several centers at Penn whose goals correspond with his research objectives, including the Center for Africana Studies, Center for Public Health Initiatives, Firearm & Injury Center at Penn, Injury Prevention Center and the Philadelphia Collaborative Violence Prevention Center, a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and several universities and community-based organizations in Philadelphia to develop youth violence programming in West/Southwest Philadelphia.