As a transdisciplinary research institute, DevSci aims to bring faculty and researchers together to promote health and wellbeing from birth onward. Under DevSci, psychologists, pediatricians, obstetricians, bio-engineers, neuroscientists, data scientists, linguists, and population health experts are among many researchers contributing their unique skills to novel, high-impact collaborative science.
DevSci co-founder Sandy Waxman is Center Director of the ICDC lab, which adopts a developmental, cross-linguistic and cross-cultural approach to identify what cognitive and linguistic capacities are available to infants and young children from the very start, and how these are shaped by their experience. Waxman’s research serves as a springboard for promoting positive developmental outcomes in all children.
Dr. Garfield collaborated with Young Lee, adjunct instructor in Medical Social Sciences, who at the time was a scientist at Motorola Mobility, to create a tool to provide anxious parents of babies in the NICU. Together they designed a groundbreaking app called NICU-2-Home to help parents as they prepare to leave the hospital. Among its features, the app manages infants’ health data, educates on common NICU issues and supports mothers’ and fathers’ mental health.
DevSci co-founder, Ellen Wartella, is Director of the CMHD, which employs psychological, educational, and communication theories to investigate traditional media, such as television and advertising, as well as new media, such as social media and apps. We conduct research exploring a variety of topics like educational learning, social interactions, advertising, and health, within the intersection of children and media.
Dr. Nia Heard-Garris examines structural racism as pervasive stressor and its effects, including how racism is portrayed in the media and can have an effect on children.
Darius Tandon leads the Mothers & Babies research team, which conducts a variety of research studies that examine intervention impact on maternal and child health and intervention implementation. Research-to-date has shown that Mothers and Babies is effective in preventing the onset of major depression and reducing depressive symptoms.
Dr. Matthias Doepke and Dr. Fabrizio Zilibotti have published a book titled “Love, Money, and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids,” using the tool of economics to understand why, and how, child-rearing practices vary so much over time and across societies.