Today’s faculty spotlight features Psychology Prof. Allison Yurasek. She has taught at Gettysburg College since 2023.
Yurasek received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Marietta College. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Memphis and completed her clinical internship and a NIDA T-32 post-doctoral fellowship from Brown University in 2014 and 2016, respectively.
She has served as both Principal Investigator (PI) and Co-Investigator (Co-I) on research projects funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). These awards have supported research aimed at developing and evaluating behavioral economic interventions to reduce cannabis and alcohol use in hard-to-reach populations such as truant adolescents and emerging young adults.
Yurasek’s academic research uses behavioral economic theory to identify risk factors for substance use severity and poor response to treatment, and improve treatment outcomes for adolescents and young adults through interventions. In 2025, Yurasek and her colleagues’ research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cannabis use, motives, and reinforcement among emerging adults was published in the Journal of Drug Issues.
At Gettysburg, Yurasek has taught courses such as Adult Psychopathology, Health Psychology, Experimental Methods, and Laboratory in Personality and Psychopathology.
As a scholar and teacher, Yurasek appreciates opportunities to work with her students on psychological research. With the assistance of her research assistants, she is currently developing and validating measurement tools to assess cannabis reinforcement in young adults and college students.
“Ever since I was a child, I have loved the town of Gettysburg. Now, I have the opportunity to work at Gettysburg College and be a small, but hopefully meaningful part of its story,” she said. “Getting to live and work in a vibrant, historic town and contribute to an institution with such a history as Gettysburg College is an honor.”
Photos by Casey Martin and Jason Minick
Posted: 07/24/26