 Jeanne Brooks-Gunn
Columbia University
Director
Infant Health and Development Project
Brief Biography
Dr. Jeanne Brooks-Gunn is the Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Child
Development and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is
the first director of the Center for Children and Families, which was
founded in 1992, at Teachers College and is Co-Director of the Institute for
Child and Family Policy at Columbia University, founded in 1999.
She is a member of the Roundtable on Children at the Brookings Institute,
the MacArthur Network on the Family and the Economy, and the NICHD Research
Network on Child and Family Well-Being and edits a new book series on youth
and research and policy at the Harvard University Press.
Dr. Brooks-Gunn's specialty is policy-oriented research focusing on family
and community influences upon the development of children, youth and
families. Her research centers around designing and evaluating interventions
aimed at enhancing the well-being of children living in poverty and
associated conditions. She is conducting, with Mathematica Policy Research,
the National Evaluation of the Early Head Start program, and with the
Harvard School of Public Health, the middle childhood and adolescent
follow-up of the Infant Health and Development Program. Both are randomized
trials of early childhood and family support intervention programs. She is
Co-Principal Investigator of the Child Supplement of the Panel Study of
Income Dynamics and the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Project, two
national longitudinal studies of parents and their children. She is a
Scientific Director of the Project on Human Development in Chicago
Neighborhoods. In addition, Dr. Brooks-Gunn also conducts research on
transitional periods during childhood and adolescence, focusing on school,
family and biological transitions in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.
Her books on these topics include: Adolescent mothers in later life (1987),
as well as several edited volumes including, Consequences of growing up
poor, (1997); Escape from poverty: What makes a difference for children? (1995); and Neighborhood poverty: Context and consequences for children,
Volume 1. Policy Implications in Studying Neighborhoods, Volume 2. (1997).
Her books on transitions in childhood and adolescence include, He and she:
How Children Develop their Sex Role Identity (1979), and Social Cognition
and the Acquisition of Self (1979), as well as several edited volumes
including, Girls at Puberty: Biological and Psychosocial Perspectives (1983); Encyclopedia of Adolescence (1990); Transitions through Adolescence:
Interpersonal Domains and Context (1996); and Conflict and Cohesion in
Families: Causes and Consequences (1999).
Frances Campbell
University of North Carolina
Senior Scientist
FPG Child Development Institute
Brief Biography
Dr. Campbell is a senior scientist at the FPG Child Development Institute at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is currently engaged in
two major projects. One is entitled "Early Childhood Education: Effects on
Adult Adaptation." This study examines the long-term effects of early
childhood education on the adult adaptation of persons born into low-income
families and seeks to identify factors associated with successful outcomes
in their adult lives, particularly in relation to early childhood
educational intervention. The study is a follow up of two samples of
individuals enrolled as infants in the Abecedarian Project and Project CARE.
96% are African American, now age 28-30.
She is also working with Elizabeth Pungello on a project entitled
"Intergenerational Pathways to Competence in Minority Families." This study
examines longitudinal factors associated with attainment of vocational
success, supportive parenthood, and adoption of healthy life style within a
sample of minority adults born into low-income families. One goal is to
learn the extent to which early childhood educational intervention is
associated with better adult adaptation in these individuals, all of whom
took part as young children in randomized trials of early childhood
education, the Abecedarian Project and Project CARE. Predictors of
successful adult outcomes include early family factors, early intervention,
cognitive development, academic success, educational attainment, and
avoidance of problem behaviors. A second goal is to explore
intergenerational effects on children born to these adults. For
participant's children aged 3 and up, cognitive and socioemotional outcomes
are being assessed.
Recent Work:
- Campbell, F. A., Goldman, B. D., Boccia, M. L., & Skinner, M. (2004). "The
effect of format modifications and reading comprehension on recall of
informed consent information by low-income parents." Patient Education and
Counseling, 53, 205-216.
- Campbell, Frances. (2004). "Commentary on the Relationship
Between Preschool Programs and School Completion (Invited)." In
Encyclopaedia on Early Childhood Development. Centre of Excellence for Early
Childhood Development Website,
http://www.excellenceearlychildhood.ca/liste_theme.asp?lang=EN &act=32
- Agre, P., Campbell, F. A., Goldman, B. D., Boccia, M. L., Kass, N.,
McCullough, L. B., Merz, J.F., Miller, S.M., Mintz, J., Rapkin, B.,
Sugarman, J., Sore (2003). "Improving informed consent: The medium is not the
message." IRB: Ethics & Human Research, 25 (Supplement) (5), S11- S19.
- Campbell, F. A. (2002). "High quality childcare and school readiness." In A
Generational Journey: Women Carrying on the Vision, Common Issues, United
Voices. Conference Proceedings of the Third National Conference on Women,
Special Preview Edition (pp.46-48). Rockville, MD: U. S. Department of
Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration.
- Campbell, F. A., Pungello, E. P., & Miller-Johnson, S. (2002). "The
development of perceived scholastic competence and global self-worth in
African American adolescents from low-income families." Journal of Adolescent
Research, 17 (3), 277-302.
James J. Heckman
University of Chicago
Department of Economics
Henry B. Schultz Distinguished Professor of Economics
Brief Biography
James Heckman is the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of
Economics at the University of Chicago where he has served since 1973. He is
director of the Economics Research Center at the Department of Economics at
the University of Chicago, Director of the Center for Social Program
Evaluation at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of
Chicago, and a Senior Research Fellow at the American Bar Foundation.
Heckman's work has been devoted to the development of a scientific basis for
economic policy evaluation. His work uses data on individuals and firms to
test economic theory and it uses economic theory to solve problems in
microdata analysis. He has developed the economics and econometrics of
lifecycle dynamic models to study unemployment, wage growth and skill
formation over the lifecycle. He has developed new tools for analyzing
microeconomic data on firms and families. His methods for correcting for
biased samples and for constructing policy counterfactuals are widely used.
They use economic theory to guide the construction of counterfactual states.
He has applied these tools to analyze the impact of civil rights and social
action on the economic status of African Americans; to analyze the role of
regulation in affecting productivity and employment in many countries around
the world; to analyze the determinants and consequences of labor incomes and
income inequality, the consequences of tax policy and to develop methods for
analyzing the pricing of labor services and the determinants of lifecycle
skills.
Some of his recent books include:
Inequality in America: What Role for Human Capital Policy? , J. Heckman and
A. Krueger, eds. forthcoming MIT Press, 2003.
Evaluating Human Capital Policy: (The Gorman Lectures) Princeton University
Press, 2004.
Law and Employment: Lessons From Latin America and the Caribbean J. Heckman and C. Pages, eds., University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Incentives in Government Bureaucracies: Can Incentives in Bureaucracies
Emulate Market Efficiency? Brookings, 2004.
David Olds
University of Colorado
Director
Nurse Home Visitation Project
Brief Biography
David Olds directs the Prevention Research Center for Family and Child
Health. The major endeavor of this center is the examination of long-term
impact of a program of prenatal and infancy home visiting by nurses on the
health and development of low-income, first-time mothers and their
families. With funding from NIH, other federal agencies, and private
philanthropies, longitudinal follow-ups are being conducted of this program
which is being tested in the form of randomized controlled trials located in
Elmira, NY, Memphis, TN, and Denver, CO. The longitudinal follow-ups are
looking at program effects on maternal economic self-sufficiency, substance
abuse, and children's adaptive functioning, including their mental health,
criminal behavior, and productive life-course as the children reach
adolescence and young adulthood.
In recent years, the PRC has begun a process of careful replication of the
nurse home visitation program tested in these studies (now called the
Nurse-Family Partnership program) in an effort to make the services
available to a large portion of low-income pregnant women in the US. The PRC
is now conducting a program of research aimed at improving the NFP program
model with the use of randomized controlled trials of augmented versions of
the NFP model. Randomized trials of these program augmentations, conducted
in the system of program sites around the country, examine methods of
helping nurses deal more effectively with maternal depression and more fully
engage participants in the program.
The PRC is also known for its periodic reviews of early intervention
literature, its support of early intervention programs wishing to improve
their effectiveness, its consultation with government and private agencies,
and its training of prevention scientists.
Recent Publications:
- Olds, D. L. (2002). "Prenatal and infancy home visiting by nurses: From
randomized trials to community replication." Prevention Science 3(3):
153-172.
- Olds, D. L., Robinson, J., O'Brien, R., Luckey, D. W., Pettitt, L. M.,
Henderson, C. R., Ng, R. N., Korfmacher, J., Hiatt, S., and Talmi, A.
(2002). "Home visiting by nurses and by paraprofessionals: A randomized
controlled trial." Pediatrics 110(3): 486-496.
- Olds, D. L., Hill, P. L., O'Brien, R., Racine, D., and Moritz, P. "Taking
preventive intervention to scale: The Nurse-Family Partnership." Cognitive
and Behavioral Sciences, in press.
- Shirk, S., Talmi, A., Olds, D. "A developmental psychopathology
perspective on child and adolescent treatment policy." Development and Psychopathology, 2000,12:835-855.
- Eckenrode, J., Ganzel, B., Henderson, C.R., Smith, E., Olds, D., et al.
"Preventing child abuse and neglect with a program of nurse home visitation:
the limiting effects of domestic violence." The Journal of the American
Medical Association, 2000, 284:1385-1391.
Elizabeth Pungello
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Research Assistant Professor
Developmental Program
Brief Biography
Dr. Pungello is an investigator at the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is currently the principal investigator for the Family Factors, Childcare Quality, and Cognitive Outcomes study. This study [in partnership with The Durham Child
Health and Development Study (DCHDS)] examines multiple levels of influence on communication and cognitive outcomes from infancy through age 3. It is assessing the quality of the out-of-home childcare settings experienced by the children in the DCHDS from the age of 18 months through 3 years to examine the following: 1) the association between childcare quality and language and cognitive outcomes, and to investigate the moderating effects of family income and ethnicity on this relationship; 2) whether family processes associated with language stimulation in the home interact with childcare quality to influence children's language and cognitive outcomes; and 3) whether a discrepancy between parents' and childcare providers' authoritarian child-rearing beliefs is associated with lower language and cognitive outcomes.
She is also working with Frances Campbell on the "Early Childhood Education: Effects on Adult Adaptation" project and the "Intergenerational Pathways to Competence in Minority Families" project. The former examines the long-term effects of early childhood education on the adult adaptation of persons born into low-income families and seeks to identify factors associated with successful outcomes in their adult lives, particularly in relation to early childhood educational intervention. The latter examines longitudinal factors associated with attainment of vocational success, supportive parenthood, and adoption of healthy life style within a sample of minority adults born into low-income families.
Recent works:
- Pungello, E. P., & Bauer, D. (2002). "Day Care." In N. Salkind (Eds.), Child Development (pp. 110-113). New York: Macmillan.
- Campbell, F. A., Pungello, E. P., & Miller-Johnson, S. (2002). "The development of perceived scholastic competence and global self-worth in African American adolescents from low-income families." Journal of Adolescent Research, 17 (3), 277-302.
- Campbell, F. A., Ramey, C. T. Pungello, E. P., Miller-Johnson, S., & Sparling, J. J. (2002). "Early childhood education: Young adult outcomes from the Abecedarian Project." Applied Developmental Science, 6 (1), 42-57.
- Campbell, F.A., Pungello, E. P., Miller-Johnson, S., Burchinal, M., & Ramey, C. T. (2001). "The development of cognitive and academic abilities: Growth curves from an early childhood educational experiment." Developmental Psychology, 37 (2), 231-242.
- 5. Pungello, E. P. & Kurtz-Costes, B. (2000). "Working women's selection of care for their infants: A prospective study." Family Relations, 49 (3), 245-255.
Craig Ramey
Georgetown University
Director
Georgetown Center on Health and Education
(CHE)
Brief Biography
Craig T. Ramey, PhD, is the Director of the Center for Health and Education.
He specializes in the study of factors affecting young children's
development of intelligence, social competence and academic achievement.
Over the past 30 years, he and Sharon Ramey have conducted research
involving 14,000 children and families in 40 states. Dr. Ramey is the author
of more than 225 publications, including five books, and he frequently
consults with federal and state governments as well as private agencies,
foundations and the news media.
Sharon Ramey
Georgetown University
Founding Director
Georgetown Center on Health and Education
(CHE)
Brief Biography
Sharon Landesman Ramey, PhD, is the Director of the Center for Health and education. She is a developmental psychologist whose professional interests
include the study of the development of intelligence and children's
competency, early experience and early intervention, the changing American
family, and the transition to school.
Arthur Reynolds
University of Minnesota
Director
Chicago Longitudinal Study
Brief Biography
Dr. Reynolds conducts research focused on children's social adjustment and
academic success, with a particular emphasis on how environmental conditions
influence the development and well-being of low-income children from the
early childhood period through young adulthood. His primary program of
research is based on the Chicago Longitudinal Study (CLS), of which he is
Director. Begun in 1985 and now in its 16th year, this study traces a cohort
of 1,539 low-income children born in 1980 who participated in the Chicago
Child-Parent Center Program and other government-funded early childhood
programs in 25 Chicago public schools. The project is currently in the early
adulthood phase. One objective of the study is to determine the long-term
effects of participation in the program and other early experiences on
educational attainment, social behavior, economic well-being, utilization of
social welfare services, and mental health. Another objective is to better
understand the role of family support and caregiving behavior in early adult
outcomes.
Current Research Projects:
- Longitudinal Effects of Extended Childhood Intervention. Role on Project: Principal Investigator; Funding Agency: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; For more information, see the Chicago Longitudinal Study (CLS) website at:
http://www.waisman.wisc.edu/cls/.
- Postsecondary Outcomes of the Title I Chicago Child-Parent Centers. Role on Project: Principal Investigator; Funding Agency: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U. S. Department of Education. For more information, see the Chicago Longitudinal Study (CLS) website at:
http://www.waisman.wisc.edu/cls/.
Selected Publications
-
Reynolds, A. J. (2000). Success in early intervention: The Chicago
Child-Parent Centers. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Larry Schweinhart
High/Scope Educational Research Foundation
President and Current Director
Perry Preschool Study
Brief Biography
Larry Schweinhart is Chair of the Research Division of High/Scope
Educational Research Foundation. As such, he oversees all of the
Foundation's research initiatives, including the High/Scope Perry Preschool
and Preschool Curriculum Comparison Studies. Schweinhart also served as
Director of the Michigan School Readiness Program evaluation, an effort to
evaluate the state's preschool program for at-risk four-year-olds; Director
of the Head Start Quality Research Center, leading an effort to define and
assess quality in Head Start programs; and Director of the High/Scope Child
Observation Record studies, designing and implementing studies of the
feasibility, reliability, and validity of this tool in assessing children's
development in early childhood programs. He is the author of numerous
publications and reports for High/Scope and has published extensively in
external venues on early childhood education, curriculum, evaluation, and
assessment. Schweinhart has also lectured widely in the U.S. and abroad. Richard Tremblay
University of Montreal
Chair
Research Unit on Children's Psychosocial Maladjustment (GRIP)
Brief Biography
Richard Tremblay is professor of pediatrics, psychiatry, and psychology at
the University of Montréal, and Canada Research Chair in Child Development.
For the past 20 years he has conducted a program of longitudinal studies on
the physical, cognitive, emotional and social development of children from
conception to adulthood. One of his major focuses has been the study of the
development and prevention of antisocial behaviour. As director of an
interdisciplinary research centre funded by three universities (Laval,
McGill and Montréal), his main goal is to integrate genetic, environment,
brain and behaviour research to understand the socialisation process. With
partners from across Canada he has recently been funded by Health Canada to
create the Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development. The mandate
of this centre is to disseminate the best available knowledge on early
social and emotional development, especially to policy makers and service
providers. Professor Tremblay is an advisory board member of the Canadian
Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health (IHDCYH), and a
member of one of the USA National Institute of Health planning committees
for a longitudinal study of 100,000 pregnant women. This study is expected
to follow the children's development for at least 30 years. As Molson Fellow
of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Dr. Tremblay is a member of
its Human Development program. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Canada.
Selected publications:
- Brame, B., Nagin, D. S., & Tremblay, R. E. (2001). "Developmental
trajectories of physical aggression from school entry to late adolescence."
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42(4), 503-512.
- Nagin, D. S., & Tremblay, R. E. (2001). "Parental and early childhood
predictors of persistent physical aggression in boys from kindergarten to
high school." Archives of General Psychiatry, 58, 389-394.
-
Tremblay, R. E. (2000). "The development of aggressive behavior during
childhood: What have we learned in the past century?" International Journal
of Behavioral Development, 24(2), 129-141.
- Tremblay, R. E., Japel, C., Pérusse, D., Boivin, M., Zoccolillo, M.,
Montplaisir, J., & McDuff, P. (1999). "The search for the age of 'onset' of
physical aggression: Rousseau and Bandura revisited." Criminal Behavior and
Mental Health, 9, 24-39.
- Tremblay, R. E., & LeMarquand, D. (2001). "Individual risk and protective
factors." In R. Loeber & D. Farrington (Eds.), Child delinquents:
Development, interventions and service needs (pp. 137-164). Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
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