Developmental Science Faculty

Dr. Donald J. Bolger, Associate Professor (djbolger@umd.edu
How the brain learns to read; Sources of reading skill and impairment; How children learn the meaning of words; The impact of stress on learning and development

Dr. Lucas Butler, Associate Professor (lpbutler@umd.edu)
Social learning, social cognition, and cognitive development in early childhood. How children's early learning is fundamentally shaped by the social context in which it occurs.

Dr. Natasha Cabrera, Professor (ncabrera@umd.edu
Parenting and children's cognitive and social development; Parent involvement in schools and children's achievement; Cultural and ethnic differences in parenting behaviors and children's outcomes

Dr. Kevin Dunbar, I-STEM Professor (kndunbar@umd.edu)
Thinking, Reasoning, and problem solving in complex domains such as science; Analogical Reasoning, Causal Reasoning, Inductive, Deductive, and Distributed Reasoning; Gender and science; Brain mechanisms or reasoning; Development of Scientific Thinking

Dr. Nathan Fox, Distinguished University Professor (fox@umd.edu)​​​​​​​
Infant and Child Temperament; Development of emotion and emotion regulation; Human Developmental Neuroscience; Development of social cognition; Infant social cognition

Dr. Melanie Killen, Professor (mkillen@umd.edu)​​​​​​​
Social cognitive development, morality, intergroup relationships, origins of prejudice, social exclusion, morality and theory of mind, implicit and explicit biases

Dr. Elisa Klein, Associate Professor (elklein@umd.edu)​​​​​​​
Child care and early education policy; Early childhood education; Young children's understanding of their early school experiences; Teacher beliefs about development; Teacher education

Dr. Kelly Mix, Professor (kmix@umd.edu)​​​​​​​
Cognitive development, mathematics, symbol grounding

Dr. Richard W. Prather, Associate Professor (prather1@umd.edu)​​​​​​​
Educational neuroscience, mathematical models, developmental cognitive neuroscience, numerical cognition

Dr. Geetha Ramani, Associate Professor (gramani@umd.edu) ​​​​​​​
Influence of social interactions on young children's cognitive development; Learning through cooperative play and activities; Early mathematics and problem-solving skills; Development and correlates of peer cooperation.

Dr. Rachel Romeo, Incoming Assistant Professor (romeo@umd.edu)
Brain development from infancy through adolescence; language and literacy development; socioeconomic status and early adversity; the role of early experiences on neurocognitive development; equity in education and learning

Dr. Kenneth Rubin, Professor (krubin@umd.edu) ​​​​​​​
Social development; Developmental Psychopathology; Peer relationships; Parenting and parent-child relationships; Culture

Dr. Min Wang, Professor (minwang@umd.edu) ​​​​​​​
Language and reading acquisition; cross language and writing system comparisons; second language/bilingual literacy development.