Dr. Susan Gelman

  Dr. Gelman is a nationally and internationally known leader in the field of cognitive development, conducting seminal work on the early development of children’s conceptual understanding and making significant theoretical contributions to the field. Dr. Gelman is one of the field's visionaries. She has taken an interdisciplinary approach to her scholarship, bringing together insights from philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, and psychology to investigate and explain children’s language and conceptual development. Her pioneering work showed that young children's essentialist notions underlie their categories and theories of the world.

Dr. Gelman is one of the most productive scientists in the field of cognitive development. She has over 130 peer-reviewed publications, and many of these publications are considered some of the most important work in the area. She has developed and tested theoretical models of early conceptual development, and the role language plays in this development. Her 2003 book has been cited approximately 400 times.

Dr. Gelman has received numerous awards and honors, including Fellow Status in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Distinguished Scientific Award from the American Psychological Association for Early Career Contribution to Psychology. Her 2003 book, “The Essential Child,” was selected as the best book by the Cognitive Development Society and was awarded the Eleanor Maccoby Book Prize by Division 7 of APA. Clearly, her scholarship has had a significant impact on the field. Not only has she been extremely productive and influential in her scholarship, Dr. Gelman has taken on leadership roles in the field— serving as President of the main society in the field of Cognitive Development, as Associate Editor for Developmental Psychology, and as a reviewer for the National Institutes of Health. She is also the recipient of the 2012 Mentoring Award from Division 7 (see pg 2).

Dr. Angeline Lillard

  Dr. Angeline Lillard is a nationally and internationally known scholar studying conceptual development in children. She is particularly well known for her work examining symbolic understanding and pretense in early childhood. But, what is especially remarkable about Dr. Lillard’s contribution to the field is the diversity of her work—she has not focused on a single topic for her entire career, but rather has contributed in multiple areas. Recently, she has undertaken one of the few systematic studies of Montessori education, and has examined it from a truly developmental perspective.

Dr. Lillard’s pioneering and formative work on early developments in symbolic understanding and pretence has had a significant impact on field. She is an author of some of the most seminal papers on this topic. This work addresses how children understand other people, and she has investigated both universal and culture-specific experiences that underlie this understanding. She has focused in particular on pretense and on how children’s understanding of pretense allows them to interact with parents and peers.

Her unique approach at combining mainstream, rigorous developmental science with educational approaches has been highly regarded by both communities. Her 2005 book, “Montessori: The science behind the genius,” was awarded the Cognitive Development Book of the Year Award. She has been asked to give keynote addresses at meetings of Montessori groups around the world. She has given invited addresses at a variety of universities and gave an invited address at the annual convention of APA in 2001.

Dr. John Worobey

  Dr. John Worobey is a nationally and internationally known scholar who studies the unique combined influences of nutrition, family, temperament, and contextual factors. His work has yielded important insights into the development of eating and health behaviors in children and adolescents. He has been extremely productive productive, producing 50+ peerreviewed publications as well as other published papers.

Although Dr. Worobey’s appointment is in the Department of Nutrition, these publications illustrate his contribution to psychology; many of the papers are published in psychological or interdisciplinary journals. Dr. Worobey has also contributed significant service by disseminating information to promote the health and well-being of children. For example, he served as Chair of a Zero-to-Three Advisory committee for the prevention of obesity, and served on Advisory Committees for Head Start Health Services and parent education development programs.

Dr. Worobey is routinely invited to speak about his work at universities, institutes, and conferences. In addition, he has organized sessions and programs for meetings, including those of the dissemination of information about developmental science, including at the Jean Piaget Society and the Society for Research in Child Development. Dr. Worobey’s work meets the divisional criteria for Fellows Status. His work is unique in the field, making contributions to an understudied but critically important aspect of development. Moreover, he has made unusual contributions to policy and disseminating information to groups promoting healthy development. Dr. Worobey is highly regarded by his peers in the field, and his work is seen as important enough to be “required reading.”