BECOMING BRILLIANT

Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D., is the Unidel H. Rodney Sharp Professor of Education, Psychology, and Linguistics and Cognitive Science at the University of Delaware and director of the Child’s Play, Learning, and Development laboratory. She has held the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, the James McKeen Cattell sabbatical award, and the America Psychological Association’s Distinguished Service Award as well as the Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society.  In 2015, she accepted the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science for “a lifetime of outstanding contributions to applied psychological research.” She was also named Distinguished Scientific Lecturer by the American Psychological Association and won the highest faculty award at the University of Delaware, the Francis Alison Scholar Award.  Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Institute for Education Sciences. In addition to over 150 journal publications and book chapters, she has authored 16 books and monographs.
Passionate about sharing psychological science for improving schools and families’ lives, she also writes books for parents and practitioners. How Babies Talk: The Magic and Mystery of Language in the First Three Years (Penguin Dutton) was praised by Steven Pinker who wrote, “This splendid book is a godsend;” T. Berry Brazelton said, “This is a great book… an important addition to any parent’s library.” Einstein Never Used Flash Cards: How Our Children Really Learn and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less (Rodale) won the Books for a Better Life Award from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society for the best psychology book. A Mandate for Playful Learning in Preschool: Presenting the Evidence (Oxford University Press) was described as “offering strong new ammunition desperately needed to halt the forces that devalue play” (VanderVen). She also wrote the California Preschool Curriculum section on Language and Literacy.
Dr. Golinkoff lectures internationally about language development, play and playful learning, and spatial development.  She serves on the boards of children’s museums, the early reading group Jumpstart, and was associate editor for Child Development, the premier journal in her field.  She is also treasurer of the International Congress on Infant Studies, and a founding member of CHOICES to support families of deaf and hard-of-hearing children with advocacy and research. She co-founded the Ultimate Block Party www.UltimateBlockParty.org movement to celebrate the science of learning and play.  The first event in Central Park in New York City attracted over 50,000 people; subsequent Block Parties were held in Baltimore, Toronto, and Boston and more are planned in collaboration with the Association of Children’s Museums.   She is also co-founder of LearnNow, a website designed to share the science of learning and the new Urban Thinkscape project to create smart cities.  She is an invited blogger for the Huffington Post and routinely appears on radio and television shows and in print media spreading the findings of psychological science.
You can follow Roberta on Twitter at @KathyandRo1.

Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D., is the Stanley and Debra Lefkowitz Faculty Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Temple University and is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.  Director of Temple University’s Infant Language Laboratory, Kathy is the recipient of the American Psychological Association’s Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society, the American Psychological Association’s Award for Distinguished Service to Psychological Science, the American Psychological Society’s James McKeen Cattell Award for “a lifetime of outstanding contributions to applied psychological research,” and the Temple University Great Teacher Award and the University Eberman Research Award.  She was a finalist for 2013 Best Professor of the year for the American Academy of Education Arts and Sciences Bammy Awards. Kathy received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh and her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research in the areas of early language development and infant cognition has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and Human Development, and the Institute of Education Sciences resulting in 14 books and over 200 publications. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society and served as the Associate Editor of Child Development. She is the President elect and also served as treasurer of the International Association for Infant Studies. Her book, Einstein Never used Flashcards: How children really learn and why they need to play more and memorize less,  (Rodale Books) won the prestigious Books for Better Life Award as the best psychology book in 2003.
Kathy has a strong interest in bridging the gap between research and application.  To that end, she was an investigator on the NICHD Study of Early Child Care, is on the Advisory Board of the Fred Rogers Center, Jumpstart and Disney Junior and is an invited blogger for the Huffington Post.  She worked on the language and literacy team for the development of the California Preschool Curriculum, is on the Core Team for the LEGO Research Network, is a member of the Steering Committee of the Latin American School for Educational and Cognitive Neuroscience, was one of the organizers of the Ultimate Block Party and was one of the founders of the Learning Resource Network.  Kathy is a member of the Research Council for America’s Promise, an organization started by Colin Powell, and has been a spokesperson on early development for national media like the NYTimes and npr. Visit Kathy’s Website to learn more.