Speakers
Karen Bierman, Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University
Karen Bierman is a distinguished professor of child-clinical psychology and Director of the Child Study Center at the Pennsylvania State University. Her 28-year research career has focused on understanding processes of social-emotional development, with a particular emphasis on promoting the social competence and school adjustment of at-risk students using school-based and family-focused interventions. In 2003, Dr. Bierman initiated the Head Start REDI (Research-based, developmentally-informed) program. Currently, she is leading an evaluation of a family-focused REDI enrichment program, designed to complement the school-based program and further reduce the gap in school readiness associated with growing up in poverty. Dr. Bierman is also interested in early intervention programs for children with aggressive-disruptive behaviour problems. She is currently working on a state-funded violence prevention program in Pennsylvania, entitled PATHS to Success, intervening at school entry with aggressive children and their families, in collaboration with community-based school and mental health service systems. In addition, Dr. Bierman is currently a member of the research team conducting a national evaluation of three social-emotional enhancement curricula designed to promote school readiness in U.S. Head Start programs (the Head Start CARES program, funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). She is a member of the NIH-affiliated Interagency School Readiness Consortium. Dr. Bierman’s work was recognized with the President’s Award for Excellence in Academic Integration at the Pennsylvania State University in 2002, and she has provided invited testimony to the U.S. Senate Health and Education Committee regarding the value of early childhood intervention and prevention programs.
Michel Boivin, Ph.D., Université Laval
Michel Boivin holds the Canada Research Chair on Child Social Development and is professor of psychology at the School of Psychology of Université Laval. He leads a program of research on the biological, psychological and social components of early child development. This program is anchored to large-scale longitudinal studies, such as the Quebec Study of Newborn Twins (QSNT) and the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (QLSCD). He was a fellow (senior researcher) of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) from 2000 to 2005. He is director at Université Laval of the Research Unit on Children’s Psychosocial Maladjustment (GRIP), a multi-disciplinary interuniversity research centre aimed at understanding and preventing the development of adjustment problems in children. He also leads the Strategic Knowledge Cluster on Early Child Development (SRC-ECD), whose goal is to mobilize knowledge on this issue. The SRC-ECD supports the production of the Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development, of which he is an editor. He also chairs the Scientific Committee of the SRC-ECD and is a member of the directing board of the Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development.
France Capuano, Ph.D., Université du Québec à Montréal
France Capuano is a professor and researcher in the Education and Specialized Training Department of the Université du Québec à Montréal. She is interested in the prevention of behavioural problems in the preschool years. She is the originator of the Fluppy program and has been working closely with a team of researchers since 2002 to evaluate this program’s impact in promoting children’s social and educational adaptation.
Sylvana Côté, Ph.D., Université de Montréal
Sylvana Côté is a professor of Social and Preventive Medicine at the Université de Montréal and a researcher at Sainte-Justine Hospital in Montreal, Canada. Her work is focused on social inequities in early childhood and the ensuing educational and health inequities over the course of children’s lives. She is particularly interested in the psychosocial determinants of mental health and of children’s maturity and success in school. In addition, her work explores the intergenerational transmission of risk factors for inequities in psychosocial development.
Ray DeV. Peters, Ph.D., Queen’s University
Ray Peters is an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He has been involved in the field of child development and children’s mental health research for over 35 years. His major research interests concern research on the promotion of children’s well-being and the prevention of children’s mental health problems. As Research Director for the Better Beginnings, Better Futures Project, he heads a multidisciplinary team from 6 Ontario Universities and local research teams in 12 disadvantaged neighbourhoods across Ontario. The focus of this research is evaluating community-based programs which influence the development of young children and their families. He has published a number of books, chapters and refereed research papers on effective programs for young children and their families.
Adele Diamond, Ph.D., University of British Columbia
Adele Diamond is the Canada Research Chair Tier 1 Professor of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience in the Psychiatry Department at UBC. Her work integrates developmental, cognitive, neuroscience, and molecular genetic approaches to examine fundamental questions about the development of the cognitive control abilities that rely on the prefrontal cortex, and has changed medical practice for the treatment of PKU (phenylketonuria) and for the type of ADHD without hyperactivity. Her recent work is affecting early education practices around the globe. Adele received her BA from Swarthmore College Phi Beta Kappa (in Sociology-Anthropology & Psychology), her Ph.D. from Harvard (in Developmental Psychology), and was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale with Patricia Goldman-Rakic (in Neuroanatomy). She received a YWCA Woman of Distinction Award this year and in 2001 was named one of the “2000 Outstanding Women of the 20th Century.” Her work has been featured on PBS, CBC, CTV, and NPR, and in articles in the NY Times, Chicago Tribune, & Vancouver Sun. Her research has been continuously funded since she was a graduate student and she has held the same NIH R01 grant since her first semester as a faculty member. She created and organizes a popular biennial conference on “Brain Development and Learning Conference,” which presents exciting findings in neuroscience, medicine, and child development in ways that people working on the frontlines -- parents, teachers, doctors, and others -- can understand, see the relevance of, and use.
Ginette Dionne, Ph.D., Université Laval
Trained as a school psychologist, Ginette Dionne worked for five years with children, families, schools and communities in her native New Brunswick. In 2000 she received a Ph.D. in Psychology at Université Laval, where she has been an associate professor in child development for the past nine years. As an associate researcher with the Research Unit on Children’s Psychosocial Maladjustment (GRIP), she has participated in the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (QLSCD) and the Quebec Study of Newborn Twins (QSNT), which together have followed more than 3,000 Quebec children on an annual basis since 1995 to better understand the pathways of problematic development. More specifically, she is interested in language development and the role of language in preventing or exacerbating behavioural, social, and school problems, as well as in the “parenting” of young children. Over the course of her doctoral studies, Dr. Dionne developed an expertise in genetics and believes that, to understand the problems experienced by certain children, we must consider not only family and social factors, but also the fact that certain children are already vulnerable even before birth. Finally, she is also the mother of four children who have fuelled her research instincts over the years, but have also helped to keep her firmly grounded!
Jennifer Jenkins, Ph.D., University of Toronto
Jennifer Jenkins is Professor in the Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology in the University of Toronto. She is a clinical and developmental psychologist. Her research has examined the influence of marital, parental and sibling relationships on developmental health. She studies why some children are more resilient than others when growing up in high-risk environments and is particularly interested in within family differences in development. She is the director, with Michael Boyle, of Kids, Families, Places, a birth-cohort study, looking at the impact of neighbourhoods, families and childcare contexts on children’s developmental health. She is the author of two books, including Understanding Emotions.
Debora J. Leong, Ph.D., Metropolitan State College of Denver
Deborah J. Leong is professor emerita of Psychology at Metropolitan State College of Denver where she taught for 32 years. She is the director for the Center for Improving Early Learning, home of Tools of the Mind. She is also a research fellow at the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) at Rutgers University. Dr. Leong has her Ph.D. from Stanford University, her M.Ed. from Harvard University and her B.A. from Stanford University. Dr. Leong developed Tools of the Mind approach with Dr. Bodrova, with whom she has written numerous books and articles on the Vygotskian approach. Tools of the Mind was named an exemplary program by the International Bureau of Education at UNESCO, United Nations in 2001. Dr. Leong has also written extensively on authentic early childhood assessment with Dr. Oralie McAfee. Along with Drs McAfee and Bodrova, Dr. Leong wrote the “Basics of Assessment” which is NAEYC’s most popular book on assessment.
Gillian Moir
Gillian Moir is currently the Early Childhood Coordinator with the Government of the Northwest Territories. Her role includes policy and program development and interdepartmental collaboration on early childhood development. Gillian began her career as a frontline staff member in a large centre in Toronto. Following a number of years and a change in position to Supervisor, she joined the staff team at Centennial College in Toronto. In 1992, Gillian headed to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, where she directed child care programs in Yellowknife and instructed Early Childhood Education at Aurora College. In 1993, she moved to Inuvik as the Early Childhood instructor at the Inuvik campus of Aurora College and returned to Yellowknife where she took on her current role since 1994. Gillian has been part of the pan Canadian early childhood education and care sector. She represented the NWT on the Canadian Child Care Federation Board of Directors. Currently she represents the territorial government on the Provincial/Territorial Directors of Early Childhood Education and Care committee and is often asked to represent the territorial government on committees with mandates to consider early childhood from a broad perspective.
François Poulin, Ph.D., Université du Québec à Montréal
François Poulin earned his doctorate in developmental psychology from Université Laval in 1996. He subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Oregon Social Learning Center and the University of Oregon. Since 2000, he has been a professor in the Department of Psychology at Université du Québec à Montréal and a member of the Research Unit on Children’s Psychosocial Maladjustment (GRIP).
Rob Santos
Rob Santos is the Scientific Director and Senior Policy Advisor at the Healthy Child Manitoba Office (HCMO), the staff and secretariat of the Government of Manitoba's Healthy Child Committee of Cabinet (HCCC), the only legislated Cabinet committee in Canada dedicated to the well-being of children and youth (prenatal to age 18 years). HCCC comprises the Ministers of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs; Culture, Heritage, Tourism and Sport; Education, Citizenship and Youth; Family Services and Housing; Health; Healthy Living; Justice; and Labour and Immigration/Status of Women. HCMO is mandated to work across departments and sectors through integrated research, policy, practice, and evaluation to facilitate successful child, adolescent, family, and community development. Rob is one of Manitoba's representatives for Canada's Federal/Provincial/Territorial Early Childhood Development (ECD) Working Group and co-chairs its Committee on ECD Knowledge, Information, and Effective Practices. He serves as an advisor for the Centre of Excellence for ECD; the Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network; the Council for ECD; the Canadian Institutes of Health Research - Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health; Statistics Canada's Aboriginal Children's Survey and National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth; and the Strategic Knowledge Cluster on ECD. Rob completed a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Manitoba, specializing in community psychology, child development, population health, and prevention science and policy. He is also cross-appointed as a Research Scientist at the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Manitoba.
Kimberly Sparling, M.B.A.
Kimberly Sparling Meunier is the Director of Family Connection at Teaching Strategies. She is the co-founder of MindNurture, an early childhood company acquired by Teaching Strategies in 2007. She has co-authored several early childhood development products and has provided consulting and training services to numerous organizations and school systems. Kimberly has also presented and conducted workshops at early childhood conferences on the local, regional, national, and international levels. She is currently on the board of directors for an early literacy non-profit organization and is also a member of her local Chamber of Commerce’s Education Committee. In 2007, Mrs. Meunier received a “40 Under 40” Leadership Award from The Triangle Business Journal. She holds a Master of Business Administration degree and pursued graduate studies in Applied Developmental Psychology.
Prentice Starkey, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
Prentice Starkey is a professor of human development and education at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his doctorate in developmental psychology from the University of Texas at Austin and was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Pennsylvania and the Medical Research Council’s Cognitive Development Unit in London. He has studied children’s early mathematical development for more than 20 years and published in Science the first paper on the origins of numerical knowledge in infants. His recent research focuses on socioeconomic and cultural influences on early mathematical development and education. Dr. Starkey has consulted on math readiness goals and guidelines for state education departments. He co-authored (with H. Ginsburg and A. Klein) a review of research on mathematical development for the Handbook of Child Psychology, and is co-editor (with A. Klein) of the forthcoming volume Curricular intervention in public preschool programs. He co-authored (with A. Klein) a curriculum, Pre-K Mathematics, published by Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley, which has been rated as effective by the What Works Clearinghouse. He is Principal Investigator (with A. Klein) on research projects investigating the effectiveness of early childhood mathematics curricula, which have been funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation, and has served as a grant reviewer for the Head Start Bureau, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Education. He is currently a board member of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness.
Frank Vitaro, Ph.D., Université de Montréal
Frank Vitaro is affiliated with the Department of Psycho-Education at the Université de Montréal, and with the Sainte-Justine Hospital Research Centre. Dr. Vitaro is a developmental psychologist whose interests revolve around the role of peers to explain and to prevent deviant behaviours in children and adolescent, particularly violence, addictions, and school dropout. He is currently involved in four large scale longitudinal studies and two large scale prevention programs to examine these issues. All the studies have a multi-factorial and a long term longitudinal perspective starting during the preschool period.
