Faculty Spotlight: Michelle Albert
In her clinical practice at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in Boston, Center-affiliated faculty member Michelle Albert treats adult cardiovascular patients. In her research, Albert studies how to assess the risk of cardiovascular disease in different racial and ethnic groups and the role chronic psychological stress may play. So why is she interested in childhood? “Disease starts early in life, basically prenatally,” says Albert, the director of behavioral and neurocardiovascular cardiology at BWH and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “I think understanding the risk factors, the biological mechanisms, and their interplay with social mechanisms…is extremely important.” 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 >>
Faculty Spotlight:
Catherine Snow
What does it take to be sure that children develop robust language skills in early childhood and strong literacy skills later on? Exposure to language and literacy are, obviously, crucial, but equally important is the social and motivational context for that exposure, argues Catherine Snow, a Center-affiliated faculty member and the Patricia Albjerg Graham Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). As a result, she suggests that the preparation for preschool and primary teachers needs to broaden its traditional focus on how children acquire language and literacy skills to include an understanding of why. More >>
Faculty Spotlight:
Hirokazu Yoshikawa
The intersection of research, policy, and practice is where, most of the time, you’ll find developmental and community psychologist Hirokazu Yoshikawa. Learn more about Yoshikawa’s work, including building the nation’s most comprehensive database of early childhood program evaluation studies, as well as his work in China, Chile, and creating the family workforce development component of a multifaceted early childhood project in Tulsa, Okla. More >>
Faculty Spotlight:
Matthew K. Nock
One of the most vexing problems in attempting to understand and treat suicide-prone adolescents is that one of the times they are most likely to succeed in taking their own lives is immediately after they’ve been discharged from the hospital. In other words, right after they’ve assured everyone they’re just fine. Learn more about Matthew K. Nock’s work to develop more effective ways to predict adolescent suicide—before it’s too late. More >>
Faculty Spotlight:
Charles A. Nelson III
Charles A. Nelson studies the brain and behavioral development of young children, focusing in particular on those children for whom early development has somehow gone awry (or is at risk for going awry), either as a consequence of adversity early in life or because of biologically based injury. Learn more about his work studying the effects of institutionalization on Romanian orphans as well as his role in a groundbreaking, linked set of studies researching the mechanisms for how early experience can change the biology of the brain and body for life. 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.
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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