How do kids build friendships and navigate bullying in schools? Dr. Leslie Echols, Missouri State University associate professor of psychology, is trying to find out with her latest research project.

Echols and her co-researcher, Dr. Sandra Graham from University of California – Los Angeles, received a grant of about half a million dollars from the National Science Foundation. It will be used to create and implement an anti-bullying program in selected middle schools in both Missouri and California.

Echols shares more about her research focus and the new project.

Read the full transcript for part 1

Read the full transcript for part 2

Read more about Echols’s research on Mind’s Eye