Dr. Mary Agnes Hamilton is a Senior Research Associate in Human Development at Cornell and Director of the Cornell Youth in Society Program in the Family Life Development Center. Her research focuses on the quality of learning environments in the community, mentoring relationships between non-related adults and youth, youth participation, and institutions supporting the transition to adulthood. In 2004, she co-edited The Youth Development Handbook: Coming of Age in American Communities Recent with S. F. Hamilton. Hamilton received a M.A.T. from Duke University, a C.A.S. from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. from Cornell University. She taught for four years in public schools in Montgomery County MD and in Richmond, VA. She has been at Cornell since 1977, and became a senior research associate in 1990.