SEPTEMBER 22, 2026
At Healthy Teen Network, we believe creating a better future for young people requires more than good intentions. It requires asking questions, listening to communities, building evidence, and continually learning what works—and how we can put that knowledge into practice. For more than three decades, Jennifer Manlove has contributed to that work through research that has helped advance our understanding of adolescent and young adult sexual and reproductive health.
We’re honored to present the 2026 Douglas B. Kirby Researcher of the Year Award to Jennifer Manlove, PhD, for her longstanding leadership, research, and commitment to building the evidence base that helps our field better support young people.
Building the Evidence for What Works
Jennifer is a Senior Research Scholar and former director of the Sexual and Reproductive Health area at Child Trends. She is an expert in mixed-methods research focused on adolescent and young adult sexual activity, contraceptive use, pregnancy, and fertility.
Throughout her career, Jennifer has partnered across organizations to conduct research designed to improve the lives of young people—with a focus on comprehensive, inclusive, and person-centered sexual and reproductive health information and care.
Her work has helped ask—and investigate—some of the questions that are essential to our field: What approaches support young people? What programs make a difference? How can we understand whether an intervention is reaching the people it was designed to serve?
Connecting Research and Practice
A longtime advocate for effective sex education approaches, Jennifer has helped expand the evidence base around innovative programs for young people. Her work has included collaboration among researchers, program developers, and implementation partners serving diverse populations and working across a variety of settings. This kind of collaboration helps connect research with the realities of implementation and the communities programs are intended to support.
Jennifer’s work with Healthy Teen Network is just one example of that collaboration. She has contributed to research and evaluation efforts connected to programs including Pulse and El Camino, helping strengthen our understanding of how innovative sexual and reproductive health approaches can be developed, evaluated, and improved. Her research on Pulse, for example, examined an app-based sexual health intervention for young Black and Latinx women ages 18–20, contributing to the evidence around technology-based approaches to sexual and reproductive health.
Research as a Path Toward Better Systems
Jennifer’s contributions remind us that research is not just about numbers or publications. It is about people.
Jennifer’s contributions remind us that research is not just about numbers or publications. It is about people. Creating better systems for young people requires us to listen to their experiences, understand the communities they live in, identify what supports their health and well-being, and remain willing to learn from the evidence. It means being willing to ask what is working, what could work better, and what we still need to understand.
That commitment to learning is essential to building a field that can respond to the changing needs of young people—and to creating the kinds of systems where young people can feel supported, valued, and like they belong.
Congratulations, Jennifer!
For more than 30 years, Jennifer’s research, collaboration, and commitment to evidence have contributed to a deeper understanding of adolescent and young adult sexual and reproductive health and to the ongoing work of identifying approaches that can better support young people.
We are grateful for her contributions to our field and to the many researchers, practitioners, organizations, and young people who benefit from this work. We look forward to celebrating Jennifer alongside hundreds of youth-supporting professionals at #HealthyTeen26, October 5–7 in San Diego, California.
Photo By: Natalie Kinnear
