Invited Program

Thursday, April 6, 2017, 10:00 to 11:30am, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom F
Chair: Natalia Palacios, University of Virginia
Speaker: Clancy Blair, New York University

Abstract: Researchers interested in self-regulation are confronted with an array of constructs, terms, and definitions. This talk presents a developmental psychobiological model that brings some conceptual clarity to research on self-regulation. In the model, self-regulation emerges from integrated processes at the biological and behavioral levels that are shaped by the social and cultural contexts in which development is occurring. One of the implications of the model is that in highly disadvantaged contexts, self-regulation is more likely to be reactive and less prototypically well regulated. A growing body of research, however, indicates that reflective self-regulation such as that required for success in school can be fostered through supports for families and through innovative programs that enhance the quality of children’s early experiences.  The model will be illustrated with data from a large longitudinal study as well as with data from several early education experiments. 

Biography: Clancy Blair, PhD is a Professor of Cognitive Psychology in the Department of Applied Psychology in Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. He earned a BA at McGill University and an MPH in maternal and child health, and PhD in developmental psychology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He has been conducting research on self-regulation in children for over two decades with a specific focus on the development of executive functions. This research has demonstrated that executive functions are central to school readiness and school achievement, are substantially influenced by experience and the characteristics of the family and home environment, and highly interrelated with the regulation of stress response physiology. An important focus of this research is on the ways in which experience ‘gets under the skin’ to influence the development of executive functions through effects on stress physiology. This mechanism is one that appears to be particularly relevant to the effect of poverty on children’s development and may be one primary route through which childhood poverty exerts long-term influence on cognitive and social-emotional development into adulthood.

Friday, April 7, 2017, 10:15 to 11:45am, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom F
Chair: Chelsea Derlan, Virginia Commonwealth University
Speaker: Jane Waldfogel, Columbia University

Abstract: Although the US has made more progress in reducing poverty over the past five decades than conventional estimates suggest, child poverty remains high relative to other countries, and inequality is a growing challenge. Of particular concern, children’s school readiness and subsequent achievement are closely tied to their parents’ socioeconomic status (SES). Analysis of data from peer countries – where SES is not so strongly tied to child development - suggests that it does not have to be this way and provides some clues as to why the US is an outlier. The analysis also has implications for policies to promote more equality of opportunity in the US. Such policies would focus on providing more support for early learning, raising family incomes for the poor and near-poor, and improving the quality of teaching and learning in schools.

Biography: Jane Waldfogel is Compton Foundation Centennial Professor for the Prevention of Children and Youth Problems at the Columbia University School of Social Work, and co-Director of the Columbia Population Research Center. She is also Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics. Waldfogel received her Ph.D. in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School in 1994 and has written extensively on the impact of public policies on poverty, inequality, and child and family well-being.  Her books include: Too Many Children Left Behind: The U.S. Achievement Gap in Comparative Perspective; Britain’s War on Poverty; Steady Gains and Stalled Progress: Inequality and the Black-White Test Score Gap; What Children Need; Securing the Future: Investing in Children from Birth to College; and The Future of Child Protection. She is also the author of over 150 articles and book chapters. Her current research includes studies of paid family leave, poverty, and inequality in achievement.

Thursday, April 6, 2017, 4:00 to 5:30pm, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom G
Moderator: Clancy Blair, New York University
Panelists: Greg J. Duncan, University of California, Irvine; Gary W. Evans, Cornell University; Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Columbia University

Biographies:

Clancy Blair, PhD is a Professor of Cognitive Psychology in the Department of Applied Psychology in Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. He earned a BA at McGill University and an MPH in maternal and child health, and PhD in developmental psychology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He has been conducting research on self-regulation in children for over two decades with a specific focus on the development of executive functions. This research has demonstrated that executive functions are central to school readiness and school achievement, are substantially influenced by experience and the characteristics of the family and home environment, and highly interrelated with the regulation of stress response physiology. An important focus of this research is on the ways in which experience ‘gets under the skin’ to influence the development of executive functions through effects on stress physiology. This mechanism is one that appears to be particularly relevant to the effect of poverty on children’s development and may be one primary route through which childhood poverty exerts long-term influence on cognitive and social-emotional development into adulthood.

Greg Duncan holds the title of Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine. Duncan received his PhD in economics from the University of Michigan and spent the first 35 years of his career at the University of Michigan and Northwestern University. Duncan’s recent work has focused on estimating the role of school-entry skills and behaviors on later school achievement and attainment and the effects of increasing income inequality on schools and children’s life chances. Duncan was President of the Population Association of America in 2008 and the Society for Research in Child Development between 2009 and 2011. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2010 and was awarded the Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize in 2013. In 2015, he received SRCD's Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public Policy and Practice in Child Development.

Gary W. Evans, the Elizabeth Lee Vincent Professor of Human Ecology, Departments of Design and Environmental Analysis and of Human Development, Cornell University is an environmental and developmental psychologist. Evans' scholarship is focused on the physical environment (environmental stressors, cumulative risk, chaos, housing, schools) in child well-being.  Much of his work is focused on the environment of childhood poverty. An award winning teacher, Evans has lectured in over 40 countries and is the author of more than 300 scholarly articles and five books.  He is a scientific advisor to the WHO on children’s environmental health, previously served on the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the National Academy of Sciences, the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, CDC, and was a member of the Mac Arthur Foundation Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health. Professor Evans is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and received an honorary doctorate from Stockholm University.  

Jeanne Brooks-Gunn is the Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Child Development at Columbia University’s Teachers College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons. She also co-directs the National Center for Children and Families, a center devoted to research, policy, and practice. Brooks-Gunn’s specialty is policy-oriented research focusing on family and community influences upon the development of children and youth. She also designs and evaluates interventions aimed at enhancing the lives of children and youth, including home visiting programs for pregnant women and new mothers, early childhood education programs for toddlers and preschoolers, two generation programs for young children and their parents, and after-school programs for older children. Dr. Brooks-Gunn has been the recipient of several honors: the Harvard University Graduate School of Education Alumni Council Award, election into the National Academy of Education, election into the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies; Honorary Doctorate of Science at Northwestern University; Distinguished Contributions to the Public Policy for Children Award from the Society for Research in Child Development; Margaret Mead Fellow Award by the American Academy of Political and Social Science; James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award from the American Psychological Society; Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy Award from the American Psychological Association; and the John P. Hill Award for excellence in theory development and research on adolescents from the Society for Research on Adolescence. 

Saturday, April 8, 2017, 8:30 to 10:00am, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom G
Moderator: Cybele Raver, New York University
Panelists: Sean F. Reardon, Stanford University and Robert J. Sampson, Harvard University

Biographies:

Dr. C. Cybele Raver is the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Analytics and Graduate Academic Affairs at NYU. Prior to joining the Provost’s Office, Dr. Raver served as inaugural director of NYU's Institute of Human Development and Social Change (IHDSC). As a behavioral social scientist trained in psychology and public policy, Raver played a key role in fostering interdisciplinary research at NYU through the IHDSC.

Dr. Raver’s own program of research focuses on early learning and development in the contexts of poverty and policy. She also examines the mechanisms that support children's cognitive and emotional outcomes in the context of early educational intervention. Dr. Raver and her research team currently conduct the CSRP, a federally-funded longitudinal study of the short- and long-term impacts of preschool intervention for low-income children in Chicago. Dr. Raver’s research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation as well as by private foundations such as the Spencer, McCormick-Tribune, and MacArthur Foundations. Her research has garnered several prestigious awards from organizations such as the American Psychological Association and the William T. Grant Foundation.

Sean Reardon is the endowed Professor of Poverty and Inequality in Education and is Professor (by courtesy) of Sociology at Stanford University. His research focuses on the causes, patterns, trends, and consequences of social and educational inequality, the effects of educational policy on educational and social inequality, and in applied statistical methods for educational research. In addition, he develops methods of measuring social and educational inequality (including the measurement of segregation and achievement gaps) and methods of causal inference in educational and social science research. He teaches graduate courses in applied statistical methods, with a particular emphasis on the application of experimental and quasi-experimental methods to the investigation of issues of educational policy and practice. Sean received his doctorate in education in 1997 from Harvard University. He is a member of the National Academy of Education, and has been a recipient of a William T. Grant Foundation Scholar Award, a Carnegie Scholar Award, and a National Academy of Education Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Robert J. Sampson is the Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University.  He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.  In 2011 he was awarded the Stockholm Prize in Criminology. Professor Sampson is the author of three award-winning books and numerous journal articles on topics including social inequality, crime, disorder, the life course, neighborhood effects, immigration, civic engagement, ecometrics, and the social structure of the city. His most recent book is Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect, the culmination of over a decade of research from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods.

Saturday, April 8, 2017, 10:30 to 12:00pm, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom G
Moderator: J. Lawrence Aber, New York University
Panelists: Theresa Betancourt, Harvard University; Lucie Cluver,  University of Oxford, U.K.; Gauri Divan, Sangath, India

Biographies:

J. Lawrence Aber, PhD is the Willner Family Professor of Psychology and Public Policy at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and University Professor at New York University. He received his Ph. D. in Clinical-Community and Developmental
Psychology from Yale University. His basic research examines the influence of poverty and violence, at the family and community levels, on the social, emotional, behavioral, cognitive and academic development of children and youth. Currently, he conducts research on the impact of poverty and HIV/AIDS on children’s development in South Africa (in collaboration with the Human Sciences Research Council), the impact of preschool teacher training quality and children’s learning and development in Ghana (in collaboration with Innovations for Poverty Action) and on school- and community-based interventions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Sierra Leone and Lebanon (in collaboration with the International Rescue Committee).

Theresa S. Betancourt, ScD, MA, is Associate Professor of Child Health and Human Rights at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Director of the Research Program on Children and Global Adversity. Her central research interests include the developmental and psychosocial consequences of concentrated adversity on children, youth and families and applied cross-cultural mental health research. She is Principal Investigator of a longitudinal study of war-affected youth in Sierra Leone which led to the development of group interventions now being scaled up in collaboration with the government of Sierra Leone and the World Bank. She developed and evaluated the impact of a Family Strengthening Intervention for HIV-affected children and families and is now investigating the impact of a home-visiting early childhood development intervention in Rwanda. Domestically, she is engaged in community-based participatory research on family-based prevention of emotional and behavioral problems in refugee children resettled in the U.S.

Lucie Cluver, DPhil works closely with UNICEF, WHO, PEPFAR-USAID and the South African government to develop evidence for children and adolescents affected by AIDS. All her work is with an incredible team of collaborators, postdocs and doctoral students in South Africa and the UK. Together, the team leads a set of randomized controlled trials on child abuse prevention and HIV-support in Southern Africa, which are perpetually beset by riots, armed robberies and the occasional military coup. They also have two longitudinal cohorts – of 3500 adolescents across nine provinces in South Africa, and of 1500 HIV-infected adolescents and community controls. She believes that children in Southern Africa deserve the highest quality research, and that science should be at the service of the most vulnerable.

Gauri Divan, MBBS, MRCPCH is a paediatrician at the NGO Sangath (www.sangath.com) since 2002. She works in the areas of early child development, developmental disabilities and adolescent health. She is site principle investigator for the Sustainable PRogram Incorporating Nutrition and Games (SPRING) a trial in India, which is evaluating an innovative intervention designed around the WHO-UNICEF Care for Child Development Package. She was part of the three country collaboration which resulted in the recently published first-ever randomised control trial conducted from a low resource setting for a communication intervention for Autism. The Parent mediated intervention for Autism Spectrum disorder in South Asia (PASS) trial, evaluated the ‘task-sharing’ approach for the delivery of an evidence-based intervention from the UK, and was showcased at the World Innovation Summit for Health 2016. She is part of consultative resource groups for the Ministry of Health in India and for the World Health Organization for developmental disabilities.

Watch the full Invited Address [Video]

Friday, April 7, 2017, 8:15 to 9:45am, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom F
Chair: Carlos Santos, Arizona State University
Speaker: Fons J. R. van de Vijver, Tilburg University, The Netherlands

Abstract: More children grow up in an acculturation context than ever before. In the last ten years, there is increasing interest in the role of the macrosystem (e.g., attitude towards immigrants) and exosystem (e.g., local and national policies vis-a-vis diversity) in this development. There is an increasing number of comparative studies in which multiple immigrant groups are compared within a single country or a single ethnic groups is compared across multiple countries. I will present such studies, dealing with (among other things) the link between national legislation and immigrants’ school outcomes and the link between diversity policies in schools and well-being and the sense of belonging of immigrant children. Finally, it is argued that globalization and migration patterns are increasingly difficult to describe in traditional acculturation models distinguishing between an ethnic and a dominant culture. Models are needed to account for the multiple allegiances of modern migrants. 

Biography: Fons van de Vijver holds a chair in cross-cultural psychology at Tilburg University, the Netherlands and an extraordinary chair at North-West University, South Africa, and the University of Queensland, Australia. He has (co-)authored about 500 publications, mainly in the domain of cross-cultural psychology. He is one of the most frequently cited cross-cultural psychologists in Europe.  He is a former editor of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. He is a former president of Division 2 (Assessment and Evaluation) of the International Association of Applied Psychology, the European Association of Psychological Assessment, and President of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology. He is the recipient of several prizes, among which the 2013 International Award of the American Psychological Association (for his contributions to international cooperation and to the advancement of knowledge of psychology).

Saturday, April 8, 2017, 10:30 to 12:00pm, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom F
Chair: Dawn England, Arizona State University
Speaker: Martin D. Ruck, Department of Psychology, The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Abstract: Almost thirty years ago, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (CRC, 1989). As the most widely endorsed human rights treaty in history, ratified by every member country of the United Nations, except the U.S., it has and continues to improve the lives of millions of children worldwide.  The CRC attempts to achieve a balance between children’s protection and participation rights as reflected in the concept the evolving capacities of the child. While the CRC defines children as individuals under 18 years of age too often attention is only paid to improving the life circumstances of children in the first decade of life. In this talk, I review relevant issues with respect to the rights of adolescents under the CRC and how its principles and articles provide a useful framework for developmental scientists and others interested in promoting human rights and freedoms in the lives of children and youth. I also consider U.S. reluctance to ratify the CRC. Finally, I address whether developmental science has an ethical responsibility to advance understanding of, as well as advocate for, equity, social justice and human rights for all children and youth. 

Biography: Martin D. Ruck is Professor of Psychology and Urban Education at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His research examines the overall process of cognitive socialization—at the intersection of race, ethnicity and class—in terms of children and adolescents’ thinking about human rights, equity, and social justice. Much of his research has addressed how children and adolescents view their protection and participation rights across various settings. His work has appeared in journals such as Applied Developmental Science, Child Development, Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, International Journal of Children’s Rights, Journal of Adolescence, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Journal of Early Adolescence, Journal of Educational Psychology, Journal of Research on Adolescence, Journal of Social Issues, and Journal of Youth and Adolescence. He is currently a member of the editorial boards for Human Development and the Journal of Social Issues and is an Associate Editor for Developmental Psychology. He is co-editor with Stacey S. Horn and Lynn S. Liben of the 2-volume set Equity and Justice in Development Science (2016) published by Elsevier in Advances in Child Development and Behavior. With Michele Peterson-Badali and Michael Freeman he is co-editor of the Handbook of Children’s Rights: Global and Multidisciplinary Perspective (2016) published by Taylor & Francis. Currently, Dr. Ruck serves as the inaugural Senior Advisor for Diversity and Inclusion to the President of the Graduate Center, CUNY.

Friday, April 7, 2017, 10:15 to 11:45am, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom G
Moderator: Hirokazu Yoshikawa, New York University
Panelists: Deborah J. Johnson, Michigan State University; Selcuk R. Sirin, New York University; Carly Tubbs, New York University (in collaboration with the International Rescue Committee); Lisseth Rojas-Flores, Fuller Theological Seminary. (Co-sponsored by the Asian Caucus, Black Caucus, and the Latino Caucus of SRCD)

Biographies:

Hirokazu Yoshikawa is the Courtney Sale Ross Professor of Globalization and Education, and a University Professor at New York University.  He conducts research on the effects of programs and policies related to early childhood development, immigration and poverty on child and youth development. He co-directs (with Larry Aber) the Global TIES for Children Center at New York University.  He is aso Co-Chair of the Thematic Network on Early Childhood Development and Education (i.e., for the area of Sustainable Development Goal, or SDG 4) of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the research network advising the Secretary-General on the development and implementation of the global SDGs. He serves on the boards of trustees of the Russell Sage Foundation and the Foundation for Child Development, and the advisory boards of the Early Childhood Program of the Open Society Foundations and the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report.  

Deborah J. Johnson is Professor of Human Development and Family Studies and the Interim Director of the Diversity Research Network at Michigan State University. Her research explores racially and culturally related development, parental racial socialization and coping, and cultural adjustment from early childhood through emerging adulthood, among domestic, immigrant and international children and youth.  She holds a deep interest in child right’s perspectives and vulnerable children globally emphasizing themes of resilience, cultural adjustment and identity transformation. In her longitudinal study of Sudanese refugees who entered the US as unaccompanied children, themes of resilience including ongoing adjustment, identity, schooling and sense of purpose have been explored extensively.  Recent research address gender and interpersonal violence across developmental periods. Other collaborations investigate the relations among identity and racial socialization in contexts where social history and current public policy impact the experience of oppression, these researches include Indigenous Australians and Roma youth. In Western Australia, Dr. Johnson has served as adjunct professor at Murdoch University, a fellow at the Telethon Institute for Child Health and Research, Research Council for the Pindi Pindi Aboriginal Research Center and was honored with a Raine Fellowship. She has published over 75 articles, books and monographs.  Her two most recent books include, Slaughter-Defoe, D. T., Stevenson, H., Arrington, E., & Johnson, D.J. (Eds.) (2011). Black Educational Choice in a Climate of School Reform: Consequences for K-12 Student Learning and Development. Westport, CT: Praegar Press. Deborah J. Johnson, DeBrenna Agbényiga, & Robert Hitchcock (Eds.). (2013). Vulnerable Children: Global Challenges in Education, Health, Well-Being, and Child Rights. New York, NY: Springer. 

Selcuk R. Sirin is the J. K. Javits Professor at New York University. Dr. Sirin studies the lives of marginalized children and youth and ways to increase professionals’ ability to better serve their needs. His recent research focuses on immigrant children in New York, Muslim youth in the US, and refugee children in Turkey and Norway. His work was published in top journals, such as Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Review of Educational Research, and Pediatrics. He is also the author of multiple books in English and Turkish, including Turkey at the Crossroad: Freedom or Misery (2015) and Muslim American Youth (2008). He is the recipient of the Young Scholar Award from the Foundation for Child Development for his work on immigrant children, and the Review of Research Award from the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Sirin currently serves on the National Academies of Sciences Committee on Supporting the Parents of Young Children.

Carly Tubbs Dolan is the Associate Director for Programs in Conflict-Affected Countries at New York University’s Global TIES for Children Center. She helped design and launch a new initiative between TIES and the International Rescue Committee, “Education in Emergencies: Evidence for Action”, aimed at improving the quality of education and children’s development​ in crisis-affected countries. Carly’s research is supported by the Spencer Foundation, DfID-ESRC, and Dubai Cares, and it focuses on two areas of inquiry in crisis contexts: 1) understanding how, for whom, and under what conditions interventions to improve access to and quality of education work; and 2) harnessing technology and user-centered design principles to develop rigorous, reliable, and community-driven research methodologies. Carly has collaborated with the World Bank, Human Rights Watch, the NYU Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, and the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research. Carly is an advanced doctoral student in the Psychology and Social Intervention program at NYU Steinhardt. 

Lisseth Rojas-Flores is an associate professor in the Department of Marriage and Family of the Graduate School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary. Dr. Rojas-Flores’s teaching, research, and scholarship are deeply informed by culture and context, and she takes a special interest in addressing the interrelationships between family, mental health, and social justice. Dr. Rojas-Flores is particularly interested in child and family well-being and community-based intervention and prevention. With funding from the Foundation for Child Development Young Scholars Program, Dr. Rojas-Flores is examining the impact of immigration enforcement on Latino citizen–children’s psychological and academic well-being in the US. In an international context, she is conducting collaborative research looking at the impact of community violence and trauma on adolescents, parents, and teachers living in El Salvador. Most recently, Dr. Rojas-Flores began to examine communities in situations of internal displacement in Colombia and the role that faith leaders play in facilitating and supporting their integration and flourishing. As a bilingual/bicultural clinical psychologist, she also provides clinical assessments to Central American unaccompanied minors. Her work has been published in journals such as Psychological Trauma, International Perspectives of Psychology, and Anxiety, Stress, & Coping: An International Journal.

Friday, April 7, 2017, 2:15 to 3:45pm, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom G
Moderator: Kofi Marfo, Aga Khan University
Panelists: Hirokazu Yoshikawa and J. Lawrence Aber, New York University

Biographies:

Kofi Marfo, Ph.D. is Professor and Foundation Director, Institute for Human Development, Aga Khan University (South-Central Asia, East Africa, UK). Kofi has previously held positions at the University of South Florida, Kent State University, Memorial University of Newfoundland, University of Alberta, and the University of Cape Coast. His current scholarly interests include: developmental science, social policy and childhood interventions; advancement of a global science of human development; and philosophical issues in behavioral science and education research. He has published in the areas of early child development, parent-child interaction, behavioral development in Chinese children adopted into the US, and childhood disability in low/middle-income countries. Kofi co-leads an initiative to strengthen Africa’s contributions to child development research, and is co-convener of the African Scholars Workshops (in Child/Early Child Development). Kofi has served on SRCD’s Governing Council, and is a member of the National Academies of Science Forum, Investing in Young Children Globally.

Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Ph.D. is the Courtney Sale Ross Professor of Globalization and Education, and a University Professor at New York University.  He conducts research on the effects of programs and policies related to early childhood development, immigration and poverty on child and youth development. He co-directs (with Larry Aber) the Global TIES for Children Center at New York University.  He is aso Co-Chair of the Thematic Network on Early Childhood Development and Education (i.e., for the area of Sustainable Development Goal, or SDG 4) of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the research network advising the Secretary-General on the development and implementation of the global SDGs. He serves on the boards of trustees of the Russell Sage Foundation and the Foundation for Child Development, and the advisory boards of the Early Childhood Program of the Open Society Foundations and the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report.  

J. Lawrence Aber, Ph.D. is the Willner Family Professor of Psychology and Public Policy at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and University Professor at New York University. He received his Ph. D. in Clinical-Community and Developmental Psychology from Yale University. His basic research examines the influence of poverty and violence, at the family and community levels, on the social, emotional, behavioral, cognitive and academic development of children and youth. Currently, he conducts research on the impact of poverty and HIV/AIDS on children’s development in South Africa (in collaboration with the Human Sciences Research Council), the impact of preschool teacher training quality and children’s learning and development in Ghana (in collaboration with Innovations for Poverty Action) and on school- and community-based interventions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Sierra Leone and Lebanon (in collaboration with the International Rescue Committee).

Saturday, April 8, 2017, 2:30 to 4:00pm, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom G
Moderator: Cynthia Garcia Coll, Albizu University and Editor of Child Development
Panelists: Rebecca M. White, Arizona State University; Vivian Tseng, William T. Grant Foundation; Sandra Graham, University of California, Los Angeles. (Co-sponsored by the Asian Caucus, Black Caucus, and the Latino Caucus of SRCD)

Integrative Statement: This panel will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the landmark article by Cynthia Garcia Coll et al. on “An Integrative Model for the Study of Developmental Competencies in Minority Children” (in Child Development, 1996; this article has been cited over 1,600 times since its publication).  This panel also aims to build on the recently released National Academy of Sciences consensus report, The Integration of Immigrants into American Society (Waters & Pineau, 2015) and the special section of Child Development on Asian American Child Development.  The panel will look back on progress and changes in the field of developmental science regarding cultural, linguistic, racial/ethnic, and immigration-based diversity since 1996.  The panel will also look forward to implications for developmental science of current demographic trends in the United States. 

Biographies:

Dr. Cynthia Garcia Coll is Professor in the Clinical Psychology PhD program and Associate Director of the Institutional Center for Scientific Research at Albizu University, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Her research focuses on the sociocultural and biological influences on child development, particularly in at-risk and minority populations. She received her PhD in Personality and Developmental Psychology from Harvard University. Dr. García Coll has served on many editorial boards of academic journals, including been Senior Editor of Child Development and Developmental Psychology. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and has received lifetime contributions awards from the Society for Research on Developmental Pediatrics and SRCD. She has been on the governing boards of SRCD and the Society for Research on Human Development, and served as member and chair of the Scholars program at the WT Grant Foundation. Her research has been funded by NIH, the McArthur Foundation, the WT Grant Foundation and Spencer Foundation.

Rebecca M. B. White is an Associate Professor at Arizona State University (ASU) in the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics and Co-Director of the Latino Resilience Enterprise. She trained in general studies and American Sign Language at New River Community College (Dublin, VA), human services at Old Dominion University (Norfolk, VA), public health sciences at the University of Arizona (Tucson), and in prevention and developmental sciences at ASU (Tempe). Broadly, Rebecca’s program of research examines family, developmental, and cultural processes within U.S. neighborhood contexts, with particular emphasis on understanding risk and resilience among ethnic minority families and youths. As a William T. Grant Foundation Scholar, she is studying the promoting and inhibiting natures of Latino and non-Latino, White neighborhoods for Mexican-origin Latino adolescents’ adjustment and adaptation. She also publishes methodological and theoretical works dedicated to advancing high-quality research with diverse groups. 

Vivian Tseng is the Vice President, Programs at the William T. Grant Foundation. She leads the Foundation’s grantmaking programs and its initiatives to connect research, policy, and practice. She has longstanding interests in strengthening the career pipeline for scholars of color. Under her leadership, the William T. Grant Scholars Program has deepened its support for early-career researchers and established a grants program to support mentoring for junior researchers of color.  She serves on the Boards of the Forum for Youth Investment, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, and Evidence and Policy. She was previously on the faculty in Psychology and Asian American studies at CSUN. Her research has focused on racial, cultural, and immigration influences on child development, improving youth’s social settings, and evidence-based policy and practice. She received her Ph.D. from NYU and her B.A. from UCLA.

Sandra Graham is a Distinguished Professor in the Human Development and Psychology division in the Department of Education at UCLA and the University of California Presidential Chair in Education and Diversity.  She received her BA from Barnard College, an MA in History from Columbia University, and her PhD in Education from UCLA.  Her major research interests include the study of academic motivation and social development in children of color, particularly in school contexts that vary in racial/ethnic diversity.  She is Principal Investigator on grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).  Professor Graham has published widely in developmental, social, and educational psychology journals and received many awards. Among her awards, she is a 2011 recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Child Development Award from the Society for Research on Child Development and the 2014 E. L. Thorndike Career Award for Distinguished Contributions to Educational Psychology, Division 15 of the American Psychological Association.  Most recently, in 2015 she was elected to the National Academy of Education.

Thursday, April 6, 2017, 12:00 to 1:30pm, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom F
Chair: Jennie Grammer, UCLA
Speaker: Maryanne Wolf, Tufts University

Abstract: This keynote will highlight three areas: first, the mysteries around how the reading brain was  formed, with implications for reading development,  dyslexia, and the “deep reading processes”. Particular emphases will be given to the development of empathy and critical thinking in reading development.  Second,  pertinent new research on dyslexia will be provided with emphases on the Kindergarten prediction of subtypes of readers with dyslexia and their targeted intervention. Finally, the cautions and promise of digital reading will be discussed  alongside a description of exciting new work on global literacy. Digital tablets based on principles of the reading brain circuitry will be described within deployments in remote regions of Africa, India,and Australia, and in rural United States. 

Biography: Maryanne Wolf is the John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public Service, Director of the Center for Reading and Language Research, and Professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University. She received her doctorate from Harvard University, where she began work in cognitive neuroscience  on the reading brain, literacy, and dyslexia. She received two degrees in literature from Northwestern University and  St. Mary’s College/University of Notre Dame. Selected teaching awards include Distinguished Professor of the Year (Massachusetts Psychological Association) and  the Teaching Excellence Award for Universities  (American Psychological Association). Dyslexia awards include:  Alice Ansara Award, Norman Geschwind Lecture Award, and Samuel Orton Award (International Dyslexia Association’s highest honors), Dyslexia Researcher Award from Windward School, and Eminent Researcher Award for Learning Difficulties in 2016 (Australia). Research awards include: NICHD Shannon Award for Innovative Research, Distinguished Researcher Award; Fulbright Research Fellowship (Germany); and the Christopher Columbus Award for intellectual discovery   for work in Africa, India, and Australia on global literacy. This cross-disciplinary work was the content of three invited lectures to the Vatican Academy of Sciences and a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study of Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University where she is currently.

The author of over 150 scientific publications, Wolf wrote Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, now translated into 13 languages, Tales of Literacy for the 21st Century (2016, Oxford University Press) and will publish Letters to the Good Reader: The Future of the Reading Brain in a Digital Culture (Harper-Collins) in  Fall, 2017.

Thursday, April 6, 2017, 4:00 to 5:30pm, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom F
Chair: Jamie Jirout, University of Virginia
Speaker: Damien Fair, Oregon Health and Science University

Abstract: Research in psychiatry often relies on the assumption that the diagnostic categories identified in the DSM represent homogeneous syndromes. However, the mechanistic heterogeneity that potentially underlies the existing classification scheme might limit discovery of etiology. In our current work we expand on previous brain imaging methods and use graph theory, specifically community detection, to clarifying behavioral and functional heterogeneity in children with ADHD and Autism. We have been able to identify several unique subgroups of children within these disorders, and importantly, in some cases, in control populations as well. Just as notably, we also show in these longitudinal samples that this refined nosology is capable of improving our predictive capacity of long-term outcomes relative to current DSM-based nosology. We argue that illumination of such phenomena will have significant practical importance for understanding typical development and to identifying the etiologic underpinnings of atypical developmental trajectories.

Biography: Damien Fair’s research interests are cognitive brain development; ADHD; autism and neuroimaging.  His laboratory focuses on mechanisms and principles that underlie the developing brain. The majority of this work uses functional MRI and resting state functional connectivity MRI to assess typical and atypical populations. A second focus has become testing the feasibility of using various functional and structural MRI techniques in translational studies of developmental neuropsychiatric disorders (e.g., attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism). We are exploring ways to better characterize individual patients with these psychopathologies to help guide future diagnostic, therapeutic and genetic studies.

Friday, April 7, 2017, 12:15 to 1:45pm, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom F
Chair: Guadalupe Espinoza, California State University, Fullerton 
Speaker: Emily Falk, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract: Can looking to the brain help us predict how individuals or even whole populations will respond to persuasive messages and peer influence?
In this talk, Dr. Falk will discuss recent research linking neuroscience data and real-world outcomes.  As examples of this brain-as-predictor approach, Dr. Falk will describe her current work using neural responses to health communications to predict both individual changes in health behavior across time, as well as meaningful population level responses to different groups of public health advertisements.  She will give particular attention to her group’s latest research examining these processes in teen brains, and exploring the extent to which teens in different social network positions may use their brains differently during social tasks.

Biography: Emily Falk is an Associate Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, jointly appointed in Psychology. Falk studies how persuasion and social influence take hold in the brains of teens and adults, with particular focus on health relevant behaviors.  She has found that neural activity in response to persuasive messages can predict behavior change in individuals and can forecast the success of campaigns at the population level. Her current work focuses on how people in different types of social networks use their brains differently. Falk's work has been funded by grants from NCI, NICHD, the DoD, HopeLab and the NIH Director's New Innovator Award. Prior to her doctoral work, she was a Fulbright Fellow in health policy, studying health communication in Canada. She received her bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience from Brown University, and her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Sat Apr 8 2017, 2:30 to 4:00pm  Building/Room: Austin Convention Center, Ballroom F
Chair/Discussant: Ronald Dahl, University of California, Berkeley
Presentation 1: Development of Adaptive Social Behavior in Adolescence
Speaker: Wouter van den Bos, Max Planck Institute for Human Development
Presentation 2: Adolescence as a Time of Risk and Resilience Following Early Adverse Social Experiences: Threat and Reward Learning Mechanisms
Speaker: Katie McLaughlin, University of Washington

Integrative Statement: Adolescence is a period of dynamic change, learning, and adaptation. This symposium provides a social neuroscience perspective on these changes. In the first talk, Wouter Van den Bos will present behavioral, neuro-scientific and computational modeling evidence of adolescent changes in basic learning mechanisms and how these are modulated by social context. These results suggest that adolescence may indeed be a sensitive period for social learning. In the second presentation, Kate McLaughlin will present evidence for adolescence as a time of risk and resilience following early adverse social experiences. She will focus on threat and reward learning mechanisms. Her work has shown how adverse social experiences occurring early in child development influence emotional processing and the neural circuitry and she will describe how maturational changes in adolescence may create a second window of threat and reward learning—in ways that may create additional risk or resilience for developing psychopathology.   The discussion will consider the growing evidence suggesting that adolescence is a window of specialized learning (social and affective) in ways that create vulnerabilities and opportunities for a broad range of outcomes.

Presentation 1: Development of Adaptive Social Behavior in Adolescence
Speaker: Wouter van den Bos, Max Planck Institute for Human Development
Abstract: Adolescence is a period of major social re-orientation, in which one has to figure out who one is and where one fits in the social group. The process of learning to navigate these complex and confusing early adolescent social environments represents a critical set of skills—proficiencies in this domain are predictive of long-term wellbeing. In this talk I will present behavioral, neuro-scientific and computational modeling evidence of adolescent changes in basic learning mechanisms and how they are modulated by social context. These results suggest that adolescence may indeed be a sensitive period for social learning. 

Presentation 2: Adolescence as a Time of Risk and Resilience Following Early Adverse Social Experiences: Threat and Reward Learning Mechanisms
Speaker: Katie McLaughlin, University of Washington
Abstract: Adolescence is a developmental period of rapid change in neural systems underlying emotional learning and emotional processing.  These changes are accompanied by dramatic increases in many forms of psychopathology.  This talk describes: a) how adverse social experiences occurring earlier in development influence emotional processing and the neural circuitry that supports this processing during adolescence, b) the distinct influences of early adversity on threat and reward processing during this period, and c) the role that these altered neurodevelopmental patterns play in promoting risk and resilience to adolescent psychopathology.

Biographies:

Ron Dahl is a pediatrician and developmental scientist with long history of commitment to interdisciplinary team research. He serves as the Director, Institute of Human Development, and Professor, School of Public Health at UC Berkeley; and Professor, UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program. He has published more than 250 scientific articles in the areas of child and adolescent development, behavioral/emotional health in youth, sleep and its disorders in youth, adolescent brain development, and the public health/policy implications of this work. Most recently, he has helped to establish The Center on the Developing Adolescent, a transdisciplinary research center founded on the recognition that adolescence represents a maturational period of great vulnerabilities and opportunities—with lifelong impact on health, education, well-being, and social as well as economic success. He is currently serving as President of the Society for Research in Child Development. 

Katie McLaughlin is a clinical psychologist with interests in how environmental experience shapes emotional, cognitive, and neurobiological development throughout childhood and adolescence. Her research uncovers specific developmental processes that are disrupted by adverse environmental experiences early in life and determines how those disruptions increase risk for mental health problems in children and adolescents. Understanding these mechanisms is critical for the development of interventions to prevent the onset of psychopathology in children who experience adversity. She is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington and principal investigator at the Stress & Development Lab.

Watch the Full Invited Salon [Video]

Thursday, April 6, 2017, 2:00 to 3:30pm, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom G
Moderator: Seth D. Pollak, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Panelists: Nim Tottenham, Columbia University; Frances A. Champagne, Columbia University; Philip A. Fisher, University of Oregon; W. Thomas Boyce, University of California, San Francisco

Biographies:

Seth Pollak is the Letters and Science Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Professor of Pediatrics, Anthropology, Neuroscience, and Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He earned dual Ph.D.s from the University of Rochester in brain & cognitive sciences and in child clinical psychology. Seth’s research focuses on social risk factors on children’s brain and behavioral development, with particular focus on children’s emotions, early learning, and health. Seth is a recipient of the Boyd-McCandless Award for Distinguished Contributions to Child Development, the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Early Career Award in Developmental Psychology, as well as the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of Wisconsin. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Association for Psychological Science, as well as a member of SRCD’s Governing Council. His most recent projects focus on the biobehavioral affects of family poverty on children’s development, the effects of stress exposure on the emergence of children’s learning abilities, and the role of emotion perception on children’s stress regulation.

Nim Tottenham, PhD is an associate professor of Psychology at Columbia University and director of the Developmental Affective Neuroscience Laboratory. Her research examines the development of the neurobiology associated with emotional behavior in humans. Her research has highlighted fundamental changes in amygdala-prefrontal cortex circuitry across childhood and adolescence and the powerful role of early experiences, such as caregiving and stress. Her research uses fMRI, behavioral, and physiological methods to examine human limbic-cortical development in children and adolescents as well as their parents. She has authored over 70 journal articles and book chapters. She is a frequent lecturer both nationally and internationally on human brain development and emotional development and a recipient of the National Institute of Mental Health Biobehavioral Research Awards for Innovative New Scientists (BRAINS) Award, the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology, and the Developmental Science Early Career Researcher Prize.  

Frances A. Champagne, PhD. is an Associate Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Psychology at Columbia University, a faculty member of the Columbia Population Research Center (CPRC), and a Sackler Scientist within the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology. Dr. Champagne’s research integrates molecular, neurobiological and behavioral approaches toward an understanding of how a broad range of environmental exposures can lead to long-term biological and behavioral outcomes.  In particular, her work is examining the epigenetic origins of variation in mental health and the transmission of these epigenetic effects across generations.

Philip A. Fisher, Ph.D., is a Philip Knight Endowed Professor of Psychology and Research Scientist at the Prevention Science Institute Center for Translational Neuroscience at the University of Oregon. He is Science Director for the National Forum on Early Childhood Policy and Programs and a Senior Fellow at the Center on the Developing Child, both based at Harvard University. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Oregon Social Learning Center. Dr. Fisher’s work on disadvantaged and maltreated children includes (a) studies to understand the effects of early stress on the developing brain; (b) the development of two-generation prevention and treatment programs to improve high-risk children’s (and their caregiver’s) well-being and brain functioning; and (c) advocacy for science-based policy and practice to improve early learning and healthy development in high-risk children. He is the recipient of the 2012 Society for Prevention Research Translational Science Award.    

W. Thomas Boyce is the Lisa and John Pritzker Distinguished Professor of Developmental and Behavioral Health in the Departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco; he heads the Division of Developmental Medicine within the Department of Pediatrics. Previously, he was Professor of Pediatrics and the Sunny Hill Health Centre-BC Leadership Chair in Child Development at the University of British Columbia, in the Human Early Learning Partnership, and at the Child and Family Research Institute of BC Children’s Hospital. Dr. Boyce has served as a member of Harvard University’s National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, UC Berkeley’s Institute of Human Development, as well as a founding co-Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars Program at Berkeley and UCSF. He co-directs the Child and Brain Development Program for the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, serves on the Board on Children, Youth and Families of the National Academies, and was elected in 2011 to the National Academy of Medicine. Dr. Boyce's research addresses individual differences in children’s biological sensitivity to social contexts, such as the family, classroom and community. His work, which has generated nearly 200 scientific publications, demonstrates that a subset of children (“orchid children”) show exceptional biological susceptibility to their social conditions and bear higher risks of illness and developmental disorders in settings of adversity and stress. Taken together, findings from his research suggest that the supportiveness of early environments have important effects on children’s health and well being.

Watch the Full Invited Salon [Video]

Friday, April 7, 2017, 8:15 to 9:45am, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom G
Moderator: Nicholas B. Allen, University of Oregon
Panelists: Bruce  D. McCandliss, Stanford University and Daniel Ansari, University of Western Ontario, Canada

Biographies:

Nick Allen is the Ann Swindells Professor of Clinical Psychology and the Director of the Center for Digital Mental Health at the University of Oregon. Professor Allen is a leading researcher in the area of adolescent mental health, especially for his work on the relationship between biological and interpersonal aspects of adolescent development and risk for depression. He has especially focused on how family interactions and other aspects of the child’s environment that have been shown to increase risk for mental health problems (e.g., stress, abuse, socio-economic disadvantage) influence the child or adolescent’s emotional functioning and the development of the biological systems that undergird these emotions – especially adolescent brain development and sleep. Recently his work has included automatic assessment of behavior via mobile and wearable devices in order to predict mental health states and provide adaptive interventions. The overall aim of this work is to not only shed light on the underlying causes of mental health and ill-health during adolesence, but also to inform innovative approaches to early intervention and prevention by utilizing this knowledge to generate and test novel, developmentally-targeted clinical and public health interventions.

Bruce D. McCandliss is Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education.

Daniel Ansari received his PhD from University College London in 2003. Presently, he is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology and the Brain & Mind Institute at Western University, Canada where he heads the Numerical Cognition Laboratory (www.numericalcognition.org). Ansari and his team explore the developmental trajectory underlying both the typical and atypical development of numerical and mathematical skills, using both behavioral and neuroimaging methods. Ansari has received early career awards from the Society of Research in Child Development, the American Psychological Association as well as the Government of Ontario. In 2014, Ansari was named as a member of the inaugural cohort of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada and in 2015 he received the E.W.R Steacie Memorial Fellowship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Watch the full Invited Address [Video]

Friday, April 7, 2017, 2:15 to 3:45pm, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom F
Chair: Terri Sabol, Northwestern University
Speaker: Kenneth A. Dodge, William McDougall Professor of Public Policy, Duke University

Abstract: Unlike K-12 public education and Medicare for the aged, our nation has no comprehensive system for reaching and supporting families with children aged 0 to 5. The period of maximal neural development when achievement gaps and health gaps are launched is arguably the most important in the lifespan, and yet we do not even keep track of how many 0-5 children live in a community, let alone how they are supported. I propose a comprehensive system to enhance population-wide kindergarten health and readiness by beginning at birth. One component is Family Connects (FC), a universal, postnatal approach that attempts to reach and assess every family’s strengths and needs, provide brief intervention, and connect families with needed community services. Two randomized controlled trials (RCT) and a field quasi-experiment demonstrate broad population reach and impact, with a positive return on investment. I describe how to make this approach public policy and finance it nationwide. 

Biography: Kenneth A. Dodge is the William McDougall Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University, where he founded the Center for Child and Family Policy. He has articulated a social information processing model of how violent behavior develops in children and families and has shown how public policy can be shaped to prevent violence and support healthy development for the entire population of children. With colleagues, he has conducted longitudinal studies such as the Child Development Project and randomized controlled trials to evaluate the impact of prevention programs such as Fast Track and Family Connects. Dodge is trained as a clinical and developmental psychologist, having earned his B.A. at Northwestern University and his Ph.D. at Duke University. Dodge was elected into the National Academy of Medicine in 2015. He has published more than 500 scientific articles which have been cited more than 77,000 times.

Saturday, April 8, 2017, 8:30 to 10:00am, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom F
Chair: Jordan Booker, Emory University
Speaker: David S. Yeager, Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin

Biography: David S. Yeager is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on motivation and adolescent development, and on the use of behavioral science to make improvements toward pressing social issues.  He received his Ph. D. from Stanford University in 2011. Prior to conducting research, he was a middle school teacher. He is currently the co-chair of the Mindset Scholars Network, an interdisciplinary network devoted to improving the science of learning mindsets and expanding educational opportunity. He holds appointments at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the University of Texas Population Research Center, the Dana Center, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS). His research has received more than 15 awards in social, developmental, and educational psychology.

Friday,  April 7 2017, 12:15 to 1:45pm, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom G
Moderator: Ariel Kalil, University of Chicago
Panelists: Anthony Barrows, ideas42; Lisa Gennetian, New York University; National Bureau of Economic Research; David S. Yeager, University of Texas at Austin

Biographies:

Ariel Kalil is a Professor in the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. At Chicago Harris, she directs the Center for Human Potential and Public Policy and co-directs the Behavioral Insights and Parenting Lab. She also holds an appointment as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Stavanger, Norway, in the Department of Business Administration. She is a developmental psychologist who studies economic conditions, parenting, and child development. Her current research examines the historical evolution of income-based gaps in parenting behavior and children’s cognitive and non-cognitive skills. At the Behavioral Insights and Parenting Lab, she is leading a variety of field experiments designed to strengthen parental engagement and child development in low-income families using tools drawn from behavioral economics and neuroscience.

Kalil received her PhD in developmental psychology from the University of Michigan. Before joining the Harris School faculty in 1999, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan's National Poverty Center. Kalil has received the William T. Grant Foundation Faculty Scholars Award, the Changing Faces of America's Children Young Scholars Award from the Foundation for Child Development, the National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, and in 2003 she was the first-ever recipient of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Award for Early Research Contributions.

• Kalil, A., Ziol-Guest, K., Ryan, R., & Markowitz, A. (2016, August). Changes in income-based gaps in parent activities with young children from 1988-2012. AERA Open 2 (3) 2332858416653732; DOI: 10.1177/2332858416653732

Anthony Barrows is a Managing Director at the non-profit applied behavioral science firm ideas42 where he focuses on domestic poverty, local government, post-secondary education, and civic engagement. Anthony previously worked over ten years in child welfare, spanning positions in direct service, supervision, training, advocacy, project management and system improvement. He is also a practicing artist and has led art classes and arts-oriented youth development programming. Anthony holds a BA in Philosophy and Art from UMass Boston, an MFA in Printmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute, and an MPA from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government where he was a Gleitsman Fellow at the Center for Public Leadership.

Lisa Gennetian is a Research Professor at New York University. She earned her Ph.D. in Economics from Cornell University. Her research portfolio spans poverty and policy research, income security and stability, early care and education, and children’s development, with a lens toward causal mechanisms. Her work with Dr. Eldar Shafir “The Persistence of Poverty in the Context of Economic Instability: A Behavioral Perspective,” describes a behavioral framework for poverty policy. In 2015 she launched the beELL initiative; applying insights from behavioral economics to support parent engagement in, and enhance the impacts of, early childhood interventions. She is co-PI on a randomized control study of a monthly unconditional cash transfer to low income mothers of infants, co-PI at the National Center for Research on Hispanic Families and Children directing the poverty focus area; and, has served as an Associate Editor of Child Development since 2012. 

David S. Yeager is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on motivation and adolescent development, and on the use of behavioral science to make improvements toward pressing social issues.  He received his Ph. D. from Stanford University in 2011. Prior to conducting research, he was a middle school teacher. He is currently the co-chair of the Mindset Scholars Network, an interdisciplinary network devoted to improving the science of learning mindsets and expanding educational opportunity. He holds appointments at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the University of Texas Population Research Center, the Dana Center, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS). His research has received more than 15 awards in social, developmental, and educational psychology.

Saturday, April 8, 2017, 12:30 to 2:00pm, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom G
Moderator: Robert  W. Roeser, Pennsylvania State University
Panelists:  Mark T. Greenberg, Pennsylvania State University; Patricia (Tish) Ann Jennings, University of Virginia; Kimberly A. Schonert-Reichl, University of British Columbia, Canada

Biographies:

Robert W. Roeser is currently the Bennett Pierce Professor of Care, Compassion and Human Development at Penn State University. His Ph.D. is from the Combined Program in Education and Psychology at the University of Michigan (1996), and he holds master's degrees in religion and psychology, developmental psychology and clinical social work.  He has been a United States Fulbright Scholar in India twice; a William T. Grant Faculty Scholar; and the Senior Program Coordinator for the Mind and Life Institute (Boulder, CO). Dr. Roeser’s scholarship is focused on schools as key cultural contexts of human development, and the use of contemplative practices in education for administrators, teachers, staff, and students. His laboratory at Penn State is devoted to the study of the effects of mindfulness and compassion with regard to improving health, wellbeing, teaching and learning; and in fostering an equitable and compassionate culture in education and beyond.

Mark Greenberg, Ph.D. holds The Bennett Endowed Chair in Prevention Research in Penn State's College of Health and Human Development and he is the Founding Director of the Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development. He is the author of over 300 journal articles and book chapters on the development of well-being, learning and the effects of prevention efforts on children and families. He is a Founding Board Member of the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL). He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society from the American Psychological Association (2016). One of his current interests is how to help nurture awareness and compassion in our society. 

Patricia (Tish) Ann Jennings, M.Ed., Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Education at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. She is an internationally recognized leader in the fields of social and emotional learning and mindfulness in education with a specific emphasis on teacher stress and how it impacts the social and emotional context of the classroom. Dr. Jennings led the team that developed CARE for Teachers, a mindfulness-based professional development program shown to significantly improve teacher well-being, emotional supportiveness and sensitivity and classroom productivity in the largest randomized controlled trial of a mindfulness-based intervention designed specifically to address teacher occupational stress. Dr. Jennings is leading the development of the Compassionate Schools Project curriculum, an integrated health education program designed to align with state and national health and physical education standards. She is Co-Principal Investigator on a large randomized controlled trial being conducted in Louisville, KY to evaluate the curriculum’s efficacy. 

Dr. Kimberly Schonert-Reichl is a Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia and Director of the Human Early Learning Partnership – an interdisciplinary research institute in the Faculty of Medicine. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Iowa and completed her postdoctoral work as a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Fellow in the Clinical Research Training Program in Adolescence at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. Dr. Schonert-Reichl’s research focuses on identification of the processes that foster children’s positive human qualities such as empathy, compassion, altruism, and resiliency. She is the recipient of the 2015 Joseph E. Zins Distinguished Scholar Award for outstanding research on social and emotional learning (SEL), and the 2009 Confederation of University Faculty Associations BC's Paz Buttedahl Career Achievement Award in recognition of her sustained outstanding contributions to the community beyond the academy through research over the major portion of her career.

Thursday, April 6 2017, 10:00 to 11:30am,  Austin Convention Center, Ballroom G
Moderators: Eleanor K. Seaton, Arizona State University and Jose-Michael Gonzalez, University of Arizona
Panelists: Charissa S. L. Cheah, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Richard M. Lee, University of Minnesota; Vaishali V. Raval, Miami University; Susan M. Rivera, University of California, Davis; Russell B. Toomey. University of Arizona; Brendesha Tynes, University of Southern California
(Sponsored by the SRCD Ethnic and Racial Issues (ERI) Committee)

Biographies:

Dr. Eleanor K. Seaton is an Associate Professor in the Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University.  Dr. Seaton is a developmental psychologist who uses quantitative and qualitative approaches to examine racial discrimination measurement, mediators and moderators for racial discrimination experiences, and the development and content of racial identity.  Dr. Seaton’s current projects include the development of a racial discrimination measure assessing incidents at the nexus of race and gender, and a project examining cortisol levels with daily racial discrimination experiences among African American college students.  Dr. Seaton is the current chair of SRCD’s Ethnic and Racial Issues Committee and the past chair of SRA’s Diversity and Equity Committee.  Dr. Seaton has a tendency to journal, travel, bake desserts for family and friends, shop, read fiction novels, watch movies and groove to House music when relaxing.  

Jose-Michael Gonzalez is a 4th year PhD Student in Family Studies & Human Development at University of Connecticut, minoring in Intervention and Evaluation. He possesses a B.A. in Child Development from California State University, Stanislaus and M.S. in Family Studies & Human Development from University of Arizona with Child Development Teacher and Site Supervisor credentials and Behavioral Health Technician certification. His scholarly/research agenda focuses on Positive Youth Development (PYD) among ethnic/racial minority and marginalized children and youth in cross-cultural/national contexts, and applications of PYD fundamentals in Global Extension programming. His research aim is to further develop methods centered on examining developmental mechanisms of intra- and inter-variation centered on intersectoral, multilevel, and multicomponent experiences that align with assets of children, youth, and families from historically marginalized groups and developing nations, toward uncovering protective mechanisms in early childhood with effects through the lifespan that inform, research, policy and extension and intervention/prevention practice.

Charissa S. L. Cheah, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Psychology (Applied Developmental Program) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Dr. Cheah’s research and publications focus on how multiple aspects of culture, including values and beliefs, ethnic majority versus minority and immigrant status, and the socio-cultural context, impact child and adolescent social, emotional, health, and academic development. Dr. Cheah is the current Chair of the Asian Caucus and serves on the Ethnic and Racial Issues Committee of the SRCD.  She is also an elected member of the Executive Committee and the Membership Committee of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development. Additionally, Dr. Cheah is an editorial board member of the journals Social Development, International Journal of Behavioral Development, and the Journal of Family Psychology.

Richard M. Lee, PhD is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota. He is the current editor of Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology and a past president of the Asian American Psychological Association. Dr. Lee seeks to advance theory and measurement related to culture-specific risk and protective factors. He also studies the transracial and transnational experiences of Korean children who were adopted internationally by White families. Most recently, he is engaged in community-based research to improve engagement in evidence-based prevention programs for racial and ethnic minority populations. Beyond publishing enough papers to get tenured and promoted, he enjoys cooking, biking, karaoke, camping, supporting the local arts, and watching too much television.

Vaishali V. Raval is associate professor of psychology and affiliate of global and intercultural studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She received a PhD in clinical/developmental psychology from University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cultural psychology and human development at the University of Chicago before joining Miami University as a faculty member. Her major program of research focuses on cultural and contextual foundations of parenting, and parental socialization of emotion and how they relate to child and adolescent socio-emotional functioning. She is developing a new line of research in global mental health, focusing on culturally competent and evidence-based mental health care. She regularly teaches courses at the intersection of culture and mental health, and mentors graduate and undergraduate students in this work. Her service activities also reflect a commitment to multiculturalism and crossing disciplinary boundaries.

Dr. Susan M. Rivera is a full professor at the University of California, Davis who specializes in neurocognitive development. She is a first generation Latina scholar, the youngest of 13 children. Her scholarly work includes the study of both typically developing individuals, as well as individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and fragile X syndrome. Dr. Rivera's current investigations focus on several aspects of cognitive functioning, including arithmetic reasoning, biological motion perception and multi-sensory integration.  She uses several different techniques in her research including eye-tracking, ERP and functional and structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI.)

Dr. Russell B. Toomey is an Assistant Professor of Family Studies and Human Development at the University of Arizona. His research identifies malleable contextual and individual-level factors that contribute to and mitigate health disparities experienced by marginalized adolescents in the U.S. His research has examined these relationships with explicit attention to the minority-specific stressors that contribute to the disparate rates of negative outcomes experienced by sexual and gender minority adolescents and Latinx youth, and the culturally-relevant protective factors (e.g., ethnic-racial identity, Gay-Straight Alliances) that buffer these associations. Dr. Toomey’s current research integrates these two distinct – but conceptually similar - lines of research (i.e., SGM youth and Latinx youth), and focuses on how the amalgamation of individuals’ multiple marginalized identities contributes to their contextual experiences and well-being. Dr. Toomey is Associate Editor for the Journal of Adolescent Research and is a recipient of the Society for Research on Adolescence Young Investigator Award.

Brendesha Tynes is an associate professor of education and psychology and director of the Digital Learning and Development Lab at the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education. Her research for the past 15 years has focused on the construction of race and gender in online settings, online racial discrimination and the design of digital tools that empower underrepresented youth. Tynes is co-editor of the Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class and Culture Online (2016) and the Handbook of African American Psychology (Sage, 2009). She is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2015 AERA Early Career Award, and the Spencer Foundation Midcareer Award.  Her work has been cited in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek and several other outlets. Tynes has a master’s in learning sciences from Northwestern and a doctorate in human development and psychology in education from UCLA.

Thursday, 12:00pm - 1:30pm, Grand Ballroom G (Austin CC, Level 4)
Moderators: Deborah Vandell, University of California, Irvine and Vivian L. Gadsden, University of Pennsylvania
Panelists: Margaret Burchinal, UNC Chapel Hill; Natasha Cabrera, University of Maryland; Greg J. Duncan, University of California - Irvine; Iheoma U. Iruka, University of Nebraska Buffett Early Childhood Institute; Hirokazu Yoshikawa, New York University; Martha Zaslow, Society for Research in Child Development
(Joint SRCD/AERA Session)

Abstract: This invited roundtable and interactive session brings together researchers across disciplines to address critical issues in the developmental science of early care and education. Participants will provide short commentaries, drawing upon emergent and longstanding issues from research, practice, and policy, and to address three broad questions: under what conditions do care and education support children’s early social and cognitive development?  When and why do the effects of early care persist or endure?    How do we draw effectively upon our knowledge about children’s early learning and development to ensure pathways that lead to educational opportunity and wellbeing across the life-course?  Following the roundtable discussion, members of the audience will interact with roundtable participants around the focal questions, the perspectives presented, and the additional issues raised. 

Biographies:

Deborah Lowe Vandell is a Professor of Education and Psychology at the University of California, Irvine, where she was the Founding Dean of the School of Education. The author of more than 140 articles and four books, Professor Vandell has studied the short-term and long-term effects of early care and education on children’s academic, social, and behavioral development. Other research has focused on the roles of out-of-school contexts in children’s development. Vandell was elected to the National Academy of Education and serves on the Governing Council of the Society for Research in Child Development. Her testimony before the U.S. Congress and other federal, state, and local governmental bodies has been used to inform policy decisions in early childhood and afterschool programming.  

Vivian L. Gadsden is the William T. Carter Professor of Child Development, Professor of Education, and Director of the National Center on Fathers and Families at the University of Pennsylvania. She is President of the American Educational Research Association (AERA).  Her research and scholarly interests and writing focus on learning, literacy, and the elimination of risk to children, parents, and families across the life-course, from early childhood through the aging process, particularly academic and social vulnerability associated with race, gender, ethnicity, poverty, and immigrant status. Her collaborative research projects draw upon interdisciplinary frameworks that examine early childhood development, parenting, and, families; father engagement in urban settings; social determinants of health and education; children of incarcerated parents; and intergenerational learning within African American and Latino families. Most recently, Gadsden chaired The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on Supporting Parents of Young Children.  The Committee’s report, Parenting Matters, was released in July 2016.  Gadsden is a Fellow of AERA, and earned her doctorate from the University of Michigan.

Margaret R. Burchinal, Ph.D., Senior Scientist and Director of the Data Management and Analysis Core at the FPG Child Development Institute and Research Professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Burchinal has extensive experience in managing the data management and statistical analyses for large multi-site studies, serving as the lead statistician for project such as the NIH Family Life Project, NICHD Study of Early Care and Youth Development, the IES National Center for Early Development and Learning, and for center grants and program projects funded by NIA, NIDA, NICHD, and IES.  Her research interests include growth curve methodology and the short- and long-term impacts of early care and education, especially for children at risk due to poverty.  She has authored over 150 peer-reviewed papers and several chapters, including the most recent chapter on early care and education in the Handbook of Child Psychology and Developmental Science She has served as: an associate editor for Child Development and Early Childhood Research Quarterly;  a panel member of grant review committees for MCH, IES, and NICHD;  a member for several National Research Council committees and several  Head Start research and evaluation committees; and is currently a trustee for the W.T. Grant Foundation.

Natasha J. Cabrera, Ph.D, is Professor of Human Development at the University of Maryland and was an SRCD policy fellow. Dr. Cabrera’s research focuses on parenting and children’s social and cognitive development; family processes and ethnic and cultural variations in fathering and mothering behaviors; and, the mechanisms that link early experiences to children’s school readiness. Dr. Cabrera is the co-editor of the Handbook of Father Involvement: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, Second Edition (Taylor & Francis, 2013) and Latina/o Child Psychology and Mental Health: Volumes 1 and 2 (Praeger, 2011). Dr. Cabrera is the Associate Editor of Child Development and the recipient of the National Council and Family Relations award for Best Research Article regarding men in families in 2009. In 2015, The National Academy of Sciences appointed her to its committee supporting the parents of young children and she was a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in 2016.

Greg Duncan holds the title of Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine. Duncan received his PhD in economics from the University of Michigan and spent the first 35 years of his career at the University of Michigan and Northwestern University. Duncan’s recent work has focused on estimating the role of school-entry skills and behaviors on later school achievement and attainment and the effects of increasing income inequality on schools and children’s life chances. Duncan was President of the Population Association of America in 2008 and the Society for Research in Child Development between 2009 and 2011. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2010 and was awarded the Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize in 2013. In 2015, he received SRCD's Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public Policy and Practice in Child Development.

Iheoma Iruka, Ph.D., is the Director of Research and Evaluation at the University of Nebraska Buffett Early Childhood Institute. Dr. Iruka’s research focuses on determining how early experiences impact poor and ethnic minority children’s learning and development, and the role of the family and education environments and systems. She is engaged in projects/initiatives focused on how evidence-informed policies, systems, and practices in early education can support the optimal development and experiences of low-income and ethnic minority children. In particular, she has been engaged in addressing how best to ensure excellence for young Black children, such as through classroom measure development, public policy, and publications geared towards early education practitioners working with diverse populations. She has served on numerous national boards and committee, including National Academies of Sciences Study on Parenting and National Research Conference on Early Childhood.

Hirokazu Yoshikawa is the Courtney Sale Ross Professor of Globalization and Education, and a University Professor at New York University.  He conducts research on the effects of programs and policies related to early childhood development, immigration and poverty on child and youth development. He co-directs (with Larry Aber) the Global TIES for Children Center at New York University.  He is aso Co-Chair of the Thematic Network on Early Childhood Development and Education (i.e., for the area of Sustainable Development Goal, or SDG 4) of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the research network advising the Secretary-General on the development and implementation of the global SDGs. He serves on the boards of trustees of the Russell Sage Foundation and the Foundation for Child Development, and the advisory boards of the Early Childhood Program of the Open Society Foundations and the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report.  

Martha Zaslow, Ph.D., is Director of the Office for Policy and Communications of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) and a Senior Scholar at Child Trends. As Director of the SRCD Office for Policy and Communications, Dr. Zaslow directs the SRCD Policy Fellowship program, facilitates the dissemination of research to decision- makers and the broader public, and keeps the SRCD membership apprised of social policy and science policy developments related to children and families. As a Senior Scholar at Child Trends, Dr. Zaslow conducts research focusing on professional development of the early childhood workforce, and approaches to improving the quality of early care and education.