Stephanie M. Curenton, Ph.D. is an associate professor at BU Wheelock College of Education & Human Development and the executive director of the Center for the Ecology of Early Childhood Development (CEED). She studies the social, cognitive, and language development of racially marginalized children living across various ecological contexts, such as parent-child interactions, early childhood education programs, early childhood workforce programs, and related state and federal policies. Curenton’s applied developmental psychology research strives to inform policy making and improve practice in education and health for young children by conducting applied developmental psychology research from an asset-based, equity-focuses, and culturally-responsive framework. Her research appears in numerous scholarly publications, and its practical applications are featured in three books: Don’t Look Away (Gryphon, 2020), Conversation Compass: A Teacher’s Guide to High-Quality Language Learning for Young Children (Redleaf, 2016), The CRAF-E4 Family Engagement Model (Elseiver, 2014), and Cultural Competence in Early Childhood Education (Bridgepointe Education, 2013). Her work also targets policy audiences through various webinars as well as scholarly publications.
In addition to her faculty appoint, Curenton serves on the Massachusetts Board of Early Education and Care, and as the founding director of a small nonprofit called Early Learning Access. She has also served on education nonprofit boards for National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and local Head Start programs. In collaboration with her colleague, Iheoma Iruka, Curenton co-founded the Researchers Investigating Sociocultural Equity and Race (RISER) Network, a mentoring network for scholars interested in conducting research with Black children.
Dr. Curenton’s research has been funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services in the Office of Program Research and Evaluation (OPRE), the National Academy of Science Ford Predoctoral Fellowship, American Education Research Association (AERA), the Foundation for Child Development, Imaginable Futures, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Trust, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. She was been awarded two policy fellowships, one from the Society for Research on Child Development (SRCD)/American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the other fro the National Black Child Development Institute. She previously served as associate editor for Early Childhood Research Quarterly and Early Education and Development, and she has served on the editorial board for Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology and Child Development.
The purpose of this talk will provide an overview of Dr. Stephanie Curenton's research on the healthy growth and learning of Black children. She will discuss the evolution of her research and how it inspired the creation of the Center on the Ecology of Early Development where she leads a team of researchers in conducting applied developmental psychology research that has implications for education practice and policy.
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