Strategic Advisory Board
Internal Advisors
Lindsay Chase Lansdale
External Advisors
Dima Amso, PhD
Professor, Department of Psychology, Columbia University
Dima Amso received her PhD from New York University in 2005. She immediately joined the faculty in the departments of Psychiatry, Neurology, and Neuroscience at he Weil Medical College of Cornell University, specifically in the prestigious Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology. Since 2010, Dr. Amso has been a member of the faculty of the department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences at Brown University. Her research examines the development of attention, memory, and executive functions in development, with a special emphasis on how environmental variables shape these trajectories. She has authored numerous scientific publications on the topic and is on the editorial board of three international journals. Dr. Amso holds multiple awards from the National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute for General Medical Sciences, Brown University’s Norman Prince Neuroscience Institute and the Brown Institute for Brain Science, and is a recipient of the James S. McDonnell Scholar Award.
Elizabeth Oltmans Ananat is the Mallya Professor of Women and Economics at Barnard College, Columbia University. She holds a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as a Master of Public Policy from the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on the intergenerational dynamics of poverty and inequality. Ananat’s work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and National Institute of Child and Human Development, among others, and has been published in leading journals across a number of disciplines, including Science, American Journal of Public Health, Pediatrics, Developmental Psychology, Demography, and Health Affairs, along with journals in her home discipline of economics. She has been an Okun-Model Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a William T. Grant Foundation Fellow, is a member of the Carnegie Foundation Fellows Class of 2021, and is a 2022-23 Russell Sage Foundation Fellow. In 2021 she received the Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work-Family Research. Since joining Columbia, she has served as Co-Convenor of the Cross-Cutting Initiative on Policy and Inequality at the Columbia University Population Center. Prior to joining Columbia, Ananat was Assistant (2006-2014) and then tenured Associate (2014-2018) Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, where she codirected the Early Childhood Initiative of Duke’s Center for Child and Family Policy. She was a visiting associate professor at Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy in 2015-16. In 2010 she served as Senior Economist for Labor, Education, and Welfare for President Obama’s White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Natasha Cabrera, PhD
Professor, Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology University of Maryland
Natasha Cabrera received her Ph.D. in Educational and Developmental Psychology from the University of Denver and her MA degree from the University of Toronto. Dr. Cabrera joined the University of Maryland faculty in 2002 and arrived with several years of experience as an SRCD Executive Branch Fellow with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Her current research topics include: father–child and mother–child relationships, predictors of adaptive and maladaptive parenting, children's social and emotional development in different types of families and cultural /ethnic groups, and, the mechanisms that link early experience to children’s later cognitive and social development. She has published in peer–reviewed journals on policy, methodology, theory and the implications of minority fathers’ and mothers’ parenting on children’s cognitive and social development. She is the co-editor of the Handbook of Father Involvement: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, second edition (2012), and two co-edited volumes entitled Latina/o Child Psychology and Mental Health (2011). She won the National Council and Family Relations award for Best Research Article regarding men in families in 2009.
Ronald E. Dahl, MD
Professor, Community Health Sciences/Joint Medical Program, Community Health Sciences/Joint Medical Program Director, Institute of Human Development Founding Director Center for the Developing Adolescent University of California, Berkeley
Ron Dahl is a pediatrician and developmental scientist with more than 30 years of experience working at the interface of research, practice, and policy with the goal of improving the lives of children and adolescents. His work has focused on basic studies of neurobiological and psychological development, clinical studies in pediatrics and child psychiatry, sleep, arousal, and emotion regulation, social and emotional learning, and consideration of the social, family, and cultural contexts that shape neurobehavioral development. He has published more than 300 scientific articles in the areas of child and adolescent development, behavioral/emotional health in youth, adolescent brain development, and the public health/policy implications of this work. An emerging area of research brings a developmental science perspective on the vulnerabilities and opportunities for social learning being created by rapid changes in digital technology. Across all of these contexts, learning and development in the realm of healthy social relationships occupies a central role.
Iheoma Iruka, PhD
Research Professor, Department of Public Policy Founding Director, Equity Research Action Coalition University of North Carolina
Iheoma U. Iruka (pronounced EE-OMAH EE-ROO-KAH), PhD, is a Research Professor in the Department of Public Policy, a Fellow at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG) and the Founding Director of the Equity Research Action Coalition at FPG (the Coalition) and Founding Co-Director of the national Researchers Investigating Socio-cultural Equity and Race (RISER). She is leading projects and initiatives focused on ensuring that minoritized children and children from low-income households, especially Black children, are thriving. Her work is focused on ensuring excellence for young diverse learners, especially Black children and their families, through the intersection of anti-bias, anti-racist, culturally grounded research, program, and policy. Some areas of focus include family engagement and support, quality rating and improvement systems, and early care and education system and programs. She serves and has served on numerous national and local boards and committees, including the National Advisory Committee for the U.S. Census Bureau, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the American Psychological Association’s Board of Educational Affairs, Brady Education Foundation, and Trust for Learning.
Nita Mohanty has experience in community health, federal policy, clinical research, academic medicine, and international volunteerism. Dr. Mohanty joined AllianceChicago in 2015 after a year in Washington, DC as an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow. As a fellow within a federal agency, she gained firsthand exposure to synergies between policy, health research, and clinical practice as well as the role of HIT in advancing national health priorities. At AllianceChicago, her role is to leverage our HIT infrastructure and partnerships to enhance evidence-based practices in community health and generate new evidence through patient outcomes and health services research. Dr. Mohanty has been a pediatrician at Erie Family Health Center since 2007 and is an Assistant Professor in Clinical Pediatrics at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine with clinical responsibilities at Lurie Children’s Hospital and Prentice Women’s Hospital. She has been a volunteer with multiple organizations for children with HIV, disabilities, burns, congenital heart disease, and cranio-facial defects on medical service trips to Africa, Asia, South America, and Central America.
Cynthia Osborne, PhD
Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations Executive Director, Prenatalto- 3 Policy Impact Center Vanderbilt University
Cynthia Osborne is a Professor of Early Childhood Education and Policy in the Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations at the Peabody College. Osborne is the founder and Executive Director of the national Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center, an academic research center that translates the science of the developing child into state level policies with the strongest evidence base of effectiveness. Osborne’s teaching and research interests focus on social policy, poverty and inequality, family and child wellbeing, and family demography. She has extensive experience leading long-term evaluations of state and national programs, intending to help organizations understand what works and ensure sustainable implementation of effective policies. She serves on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s committee, Exploring the Opportunity Gap for Young Children Birth to Age 8, and prior to that, was appointed to NASEM’s Committee On Building An Agenda To Reduce The Number Of Children In Poverty By Half In 10 Years. She serves as Vice President of the Policy Council for the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM).