Dr. Patricia Alexander, Distinguished University Professor (palexand@umd.edu)
Domain-specific learning; Espistemic beliefs; Text-based learning; Interplay of knowledge, strategies, and motivation in academic development; Relational reasoning
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. 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. Doug Lombardi, Associate Professor (lombard1@umd.edu)
Facilitating scientific thinking, reasoning, and evaluations in classroom contexts. Promoting understanding and conceptual change of socio-scientific topics through cognitive, emotional, socio-behavioral, and agentic engagement.
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.