Applied Developmental Science

Richard M. Lerner is the Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science and the Director of the Applied Developmental Science Institute in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University. A developmental psychologist, Lerner received a Ph.D. in 1971 from the City University of New York. He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological Association, and American Psychological Society. Prior to joining Tufts University, he held administrative posts at Michigan State University, Pennsylvania State University, and Boston College, where he was the Anita L. Brennan Professor of Education and the Director of the Center for Child, Family, and Community Partnerships. In 1994-95, he held the Tyner Eminent Scholar Chair in the Human Sciences at Florida State University. He is author or editor of 55 books and more than 360 scholarly articles and chapters. He edited Volume 1 (Theoretical Models of Human Development) for the fifth edition of the Handbook of Child Psychology. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Research on Adolescence and Applied Developmental Science. He is known for his theory of, and research about, relations between life-span human development and contextual or ecological change. Lerner has done foundational studies of adolescents' relations with their peer, family, school, and community contexts and is a leader in the study of public policies and community-based programs aimed at the promotion of positive youth development. With Sage, he authored America's Youth in Crisis: Challenges and Options for Programs and Policies (1995), co-edited the four-volume Handbook of Applied Developmental Science, and is co-editing the two-volume Encyclopedia of Applied Developmental Science.

Francine Jacobs, Ed.D., is Associate Professor at Tufts University, with a joint appointment in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development and the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, of which she is currently Chairperson. Her research and teaching interests are primarily in the area of child and family policy--child welfare and protection, child care and early childhood education, family support, and community-based initiatives--and in program evaluation. During her time at Tufts, she ahs been the principal investigator for numerous grants, with projects ranging from coordinating an early childhood community planning process in Boston to developing an evaluation process for state family preservation programs. Her current project is a multiyear evaluation of a universal home visiting program for teen mothers, Health Families Massachusetts. In addition to her teaching and research, she serves on several advisory committees for child and family service organizations and research studiesand was recently appointed to the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Family and Work Policies. She graduate from Brandeis University and received her master's and doctoral degrees from Harvard University. Pior to joining the Tufts faculty in 1986, she directed two early childhood programs and was the associate director and director of research at the Harvard Family Research Project. She also maintained an active program evaluation practice, consulting for numerous organizations on the planning and conduct of evaluation activities. She has lectured and written extensively about program evaluation and about child and family policy. Her two coedited volumes, "Evaluating Family Program" and "More Than Kissing Babies: Current Child and Family Policy in the United States," focus on these areas. Donald Wertlieb, Ph.D., is Director of the Tufts University Center for Children and Professor and former Chairman of the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development. He is an applied developmental scientist with a background in clinical-developmental and pediatric psychology. His major research interests are understanding the complex processes by which children and families cope with stressors such as marital separation and divorce and chronic illness. In addition to his basic research, he conducts program evaluations of community partnerships and other collaborations. He was recently funded by the National Cancer Institute to develop a multimedia interactive health education curriculum aimed at preventing drug, alcohol, and nicotine abuse by young people. He served on the steering group of the National Forum on the Future of Children and Families and was president of the Society of Pediatric Psychology (1996-1999), a professional membership organization of about 1,000 scholars and practitioners committed to the improvement of health care research and services for children and families. He has been interim chairman of the Department of Education at Tufts and a lecturer in the Department of Social Medicine and Health Policy at Harvard Medical School.