Dr. Mays's primary research interests include behavioral cancer prevention among adolescents and young adults, with a focus on behaviors such as tobacco and alcohol use. Dr. Mays's work in this area focuses in part on the development and evaluation of interventions designed to motivate adolescents and young adults to make healthy decisions regarding use of tobacco and other cancer-related risk behaviors. His research also includes studies of risk factors for tobacco use and other cancer risk behaviors, patterns of risk behaviors over time from adolescence into young adulthood, and research with populations with special healthcare needs (e.g., pediatric cancer survivors).