Students, Education and Leadership Development

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The Center’s Education and Leadership Development (ELD) agenda is a full suite of formal and informal opportunities committed to enhancing the growth of the next generation during the critical early stages of their intellectual development. We are also focused on building the capacity of career professionals to translate research into policy and action. As such, we engage both current and future leaders in constructive dialogue to expose them to new paradigms and theories in order to guide their understanding of how to leverage this new knowledge on behalf of vulnerable children and their families.

Given the alignment of the Center’s mission with Harvard President Drew Faust’s mandate to promote a supportive climate for student inquiry, we are well poised to create exciting activities and programs that will prepare young leaders to succeed, both in and outside the classroom. Moreover, our commitment to public engagement bolsters our interest in bringing the integrated science of child development to the real world in a variety of ways, educating current decision-makers in the public and private sectors as they work to improve the lives of children and families around the world.

Activities

Given the Center’s clear Education and Leadership Development (ELD) mandate, it is presented with a wonderful opportunity to tap into its own programmatic and faculty resources together with those from across the University in pursuit of three specific goals:

Educate future leaders at Harvard University through formal and informal vehicles about the underlying science of learning, health, and behavior and the lifelong impacts of the earliest years of life.
Support innovative and multidisciplinary research of the next generation of scholars that will build the knowledge base for application to policy and practice.
Provide professional development opportunities for current leaders in the field in order to enhance their capacity to develop and move innovative, science-based policy and practice agendas.

Our ELD activities are designed to introduce undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals to new paradigms of thought and to enhance their work—whether that be at the University or in the real world—and to draw a link to how scientific discovery can be translated into policy and action.

Four Harvard Graduate Students Receive 2013-2014 Julius B. Richmond Fellowships

Four Harvard graduate students have been named recipients of Julius B. Richmond Fellowships from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. The doctoral students will each receive a dissertation grant totaling $10,000 from the Center to fund independent research during the 2013-2014 academic year. In awarding the one-year Fellowships, the Center selects candidates with excellent academic records and defined research interests in child health and development. Priority is given to applicants whose work aligns with the mission of the Center, crosses disciplinary boundaries, and has implications for social policy.

Doctoral Working Group

In 2012-13, the Center on the Developing Child launched a Doctoral Working Group for graduate students across the University who are early in their doctoral studies and who have an interest in early childhood and adolescent health and development.

Student Seminar Series

The Center’s Student Seminar Series is designed to foster interdisciplinary conversations among Harvard undergraduates and graduate students who are interested in promoting the healthy development of young children in the United States and abroad. The seminars, held at the Center on Wednesdays from 5:30-7:30 pm, are each two hours long, and dinner is served.

Courses

Whether you are an undergraduate or a graduate student, Harvard offers a wealth of courses in a variety of scientific disciplines and policy areas that cover learning, behavior, and health from both domestic and international perspectives.

INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITY

Mapping Brain Connectivity

The new field of “connectomics’” aims to understand how brains behave at a level not previously possible—examining how entire brains are wired together, how wiring changes as brains grow up, and how interactions with the external world affect this wiring. The Lichtman Lab at Harvard University has pioneered tools to potentially map every connection in a complete brain and started to map the connectome in mouse brains. Now, in collaboration with the Center on the Developing Child, and as part of the Conte Center at Harvard, the lab is recruiting students to contribute to this mapping effort.

Read more & find out how to apply >>

Summer Internship Opportunity for Harvard Undergraduate

The Center for Public Policy at INSPER-Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa in Brazil is looking to take on a Harvard undergraduate student as a summer intern. The candidate will participate in a research project on child development, utilizing longitudinal data from a sample of 5000 people who are from Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The work involves using databases, producing statistics and building tables. The candidate will also help organize the INSPER session of the Núcleo Ciência Pela Infância’s Executive Leadership Course, which takes place in São Paulo, Brazil from June 24-26, 2013.