The International Center for Coparenting Policy and Research is directed by Mark Feinberg, research professor in the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center at Penn State. Mark conducts basic and applied prevention research on youth, families, and communities, with a particular focus on family-focused prevention. He has worked for 20 years on conceptualizing theory, developing intervention, and analyzing empirical data related to promoting coparenting relations among parents in order to promote children’s long-term mental health and adjustment. The accumulating evidence indicates that promoting positive coparenting relations is feasible and leads to improvements in parenting quality and children’s long-term adjustment, both in universal and high-risk contexts.

Mark developed the Family Foundations program and co-developed prevention programs focused on reducing adverse birth outcomes, childhood obesity, and sibling conflict—all of which have demonstrated positive impacts in randomized trials.

Mark edited Designing evidence-based public health and prevention programs: Expert program developers explain the science and art, a unique volume that provides researchers and students with guidance around developing prevention and public health programs. He is currently co-editing a volume showcasing 10 years of work by the PROSPER peer network research group titled Teen Friendship Networks, Development, and Risky Behaviors.

His long-standing interest in community health has led him to lead or participate in evaluations of community-level systems designed to promote evidence-based prevention programs and policies including Communities That Care, Evidence2Success, and PROSPER. In the long-term PROSPER randomized trial, he has catalyzed and/or co-led projects on adolescent peer networks, genetics, and second-generation transmission.