Faculty Spotlight: Theresa Betancourt
When humanitarian crises hit around the world, nongovernmental organizations rush into the fray, intensively focused on urgent survival needs, not necessarily on longer-term impacts that may take an even greater toll on the country and its citizens. Theresa Betancourt, a Center-affiliated faculty member who studies children in adversity and has worked alongside NGOs, wants to help them see that farther horizon: Combining short-term survival efforts with attention to children’s developmental needs only magnifies the long-range benefits for individuals and societies. More >>
Faculty Spotlight: Takao Hensch
As a young neurobiologist, Takao Hensch started exploring classic questions of brain development by studying the visual systems of mice—something most scientists considered a waste of time. “What could you possibly learn from mice?” they asked, noting the animals’ nocturnal nature and horrendous eyesight. Twenty years and countless lab mice later, Hensch, a professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard and professor of neurology at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH), has answered skeptics again and again with significant breakthroughs in studying how experiences shape the developing brain at the molecular level. More >>
Faculty Spotlight: Jordan Smoller
Jordan Smoller, M.D., Sc.D., a psychiatric geneticist at Massachusetts General Hospital, has spent his research career identifying the role of genes and experience in patients’ risk for developing psychiatric disorders. Now, the professor at Harvard Medical School and at the Harvard School of Public Health has been named the first science director of the Center on the Developing Child’s Science of Health and Development Initiative. By creating a hub for multi-disciplinary research on child development, he hopes to spur research and new ways of thinking that ultimately could inform innovations in public health policy and practice. More >>
Faculty Spotlight: Günther Fink
As a health economist, Günther Fink had never focused on early childhood development issues. That was until he was in the midst of studying whether a major, ongoing anti-malaria initiative in Zambia could—beyond the obvious effects on health—benefit the long-term development of the impoverished country. Fink wondered, too, if the campaign could have an effect on child development. It turned out that if he wanted a comprehensive, culturally appropriate measure of child development, he’d have to build a new one—a task easier said than done. More >>
Affiliated Faculty
In keeping with the Center’s university-wide mandate to draw upon the intellectual resources across the campus, faculty members from most of the University’s schools have been engaged to help build the Center’s agenda.
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Faculty Spotlights
This ongoing series of profiles features Center-affiliated
faculty members and researchers and their work.
- Faculty Spotlight: Theresa Betancourt >>
- Faculty Spotlight: Günther Fink >>
- Faculty Spotlight: Takao Hensch >>
- Faculty Spotlight: Charles A. Nelson III >>
- Faculty Spotlight: Matthew K. Nock >>
- Faculty Spotlight: Jordan Smoller >>
- Faculty Spotlight: Catherine Snow >>
- Faculty Spotlight: Hirokazu Yoshikawa >>
Partners
The Center partners with a handful of organizations on collaborations that involve research and expertise in early childhood science, policy, and communications.
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Senior Fellows and Research Associates
Individuals who work actively on projects, international or domestic, that have an ongoing relationship with the Center or who come from partner organizations have been invited to join the Center as senior fellows and research associates.
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Steering Committee
The Center is advised by a steering committee of Harvard faculty members whose school affiliations span the campus.
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