About the Author

Bryan Strong received his doctorate from Stanford University and taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His fields of expertise included marriage and the family, human sexuality, and American social history.

Christine DeVault, a Certified Family Life Educator, was an educational writer and consultant and an instructor at Cabrillo College. She received her degree in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. She currently lives in Mexico.

Barbara Sayad holds a bachelors degree in home economics (nutrition), a masters degree in public health (education) and is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in health and human behavior.

Her work in the health and wellness field has spanned twenty years and has included educational, non-profit and volunteer agencies. Most of her time has been in the college classroom, teaching and providing pedagogy for others in and around human sexuality. Barbara has held faculty and administrative positions at The University of Southern California, California State University, Los Angeles, California State University, Long Beach, and is currently on the faculty at California State University, Monterey Bay. She currently teaches courses in human sexuality, women's health, marriage and family, and wellness through service learning.

Barbara has co-authored two leading college textbooks, The Marriage & Family Experience (Wadsworth/Thompson Learning) and Human Sexuality: Diversity in Contemporary America (Mayfield), written ancillary materials in health, marriage and family, and sexuality, and has published a number of articles in the field of sexuality and service learning. Her research interests include integrative, women, and adolescent health.

Sharing a house with a husband and three children, running, and gardening are the lifeblood that feeds her work-related passions.

William L. Yarber, HSD, is professor of health education and research fellow at The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, Indiana University, Bloomington. Dr. Yarber is also senior director of the federally-funded Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention, a joint project of Indiana University, Purdue University and Texas A&M University headquartered at Indiana University. Dr. Yarber is a past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality and former chair of the board of directors of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. A recipient of numerous national honors and awards, he has been involved in HIV/STD prevention and sexuality-related research and curriculum development for the past 25 years, having published over 80 scientific and teaching-related publications in professional journals. Having received the doctorate in health education in 1973 at Indiana University, Dr. Yarber's research has focused primarily on HIV/STD risk behavior, particularly among young adults and rural populations, and the impact of HIV/STD prevention education interventions. Either as lead or co-author, Dr. Yarber has published in prominent journals such as Journal of Sex Research, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Journal of Adolescent Health, AIDS Education and Prevention, Journal of Sex Education and Therapy, Journal of Health Education, and American Journal of Health Studies. He authored the nation's first secondary school AIDS curriculum and three other school HIV/STD curricula. He has co-authored several widely-used, standardized HIV/STD attitude and knowledge questionnaires, of which two are included in this text. Dr. Yarber has been the principal investigator of over $2 million of extramural grants and contracts for his research and curriculum development, including support from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He developed performance standards for school HIV/STD education curricula that were distributed world wide by the World Health Organization and UNESCO. In 1991, Dr. Yarber was recipient of the American Association for the Advancement of Health Education's Scholar Award and the Indiana University President's Award for Distinguished Teaching. Dr. Yarber chaired the SIECUS National Guidelines Task Force that authored the Guidelines for Comprehensive Sexuality Education: Kindergarten - 12th Grade, the first such document developed in the world. He has been a consultant to the World Health Organization Global Program on AIDS, CDC, and numerous federal agencies and school corporations. Dr. Yarber formerly taught at Purdue University, the University of Minnesota, and in the Madison, Indiana public schools.