Biography
Dr. Deborah Lowe Vandell is Chancellor’s Professor of Education Emerita at the University of California, Irvine, where she is the Founding Dean Emerita of the School of Education.
An author of more than 200 articles and four books, Professor Vandell’s research focuses on the effects of developmental contexts (early child care, K-12 schools, afterschool programs, and organized activities, families) on social, behavioral, and academic functioning.
As one of the principal investigators with the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, she has conducted an intensive study of more than 1300 children from birth through age 26 years.
This work is viewed by many social scientists as one of the most comprehensive studies of the short-term and long-term effects of early education programs, schooling, and families on children’s development.
Research Projects
Other research projects have studied the effects of afterschool programs, extracurricular activities, and unsupervised time on academic and social outcomes. This work underscores the importance of out-of-school time as a key factor in children’s success at school.
Professor Vandell started her career as an elementary school teacher while earning her master’s degree in education at Harvard University and later received a Ph.D. in Psychology from Boston University.
She has been elected to the National Academy of Education and to the Governing Council for the Society for Research in Child Development. She is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychological Society.
She has served as the President of Division 7 (Developmental Psychology) of the American Psychological Association and on numerous advisory boards for the National Academy of Sciences, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Department of Education.
Professor Deborah Vandell summarizes her ongoing research for BOLD (Blog on Learning & Development): “Two Crucial Factors in Children’s Long-Term Development.”