Lab Directors

Dr. Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek

Kathy 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 AERA Outstanding Public Communication for Education Research Award, 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,” The Society for Research in Child Development Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Child Development Award, elected a Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society for “ individuals whose research has exhibited sustained excellence and had sustained impact on the Cognitive Science community” and the Temple University Great Teacher Award and 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 Past President 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.  Her newest book, Becoming Brilliant: What Science tells us about raising successful children (Becoming-Brilliant.com) released in 2016, was on the NYTimes Best Seller List in both Education and Parenting.

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 Boston Children’s Museum, 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 (www.ultimateblockparty.com) and was one of the founders of the Learning Resource Network (www.learnnow.org).  She is the founder of Playful Learning Landscapes (https://kathyhirshpasek.com/learning-landscapes/). 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. She tweets at KathyandRo1.

khirshpa@temple.edu
Curriculum Vitae
http://kathyhirshpasek.com

Dr. Nora Newcombe

Nora S. Newcombe is Laura H. Carnell Professor of Psychology and James H. Glackin Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Temple University. She received her Ph.D in 1976 from Harvard University, where she worked with Jerome Kagan. Her research focuses on spatial cognition and development, as well as the development of autobiographical and episodic memory. More recently, she has added an emphasis on understanding the nature, development and malleability of spatial skills that facilitate learning of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). She is currently Principal Investigator of the NSF-funded Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center (SILC) and co-directs both the Temple Infant and Child Laboratory (TICL) on Temple’s Ambler Campus and the Research in Spatial Cognition (RISC) Lab on Temple’s Main Campus.

Nora is the author of numerous chapters, articles, and books, including Making Space, which she co-authored with Janellen Huttenlocher (published by the MIT Press, 2000). Her work has been recognized by numerous awards, including the William James Award for Lifetime Achievement in Basic Research from APS (2014), the George A. Miller Award for an Outstanding Recent Article in General Psychology (awarded twice, in 2004 and 2014), the APA’s G. Stanley Hall Award for Distinguished Contribution to Developmental Psychology (2007), the APA’s Award for Distinguished Service to Psychological Science (2006), the Women in Cognitive Science Mentorship Award (2006), and the Temple University Paula W. Eberman Faculty Research Award (2004). She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006) and to the Society of Experimental Psychologists (2008). She has served as Editor of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General and Associate Editor of Psychological Bulletin, as well as on many grant panels and advisory boards. She served on the Board of Scientific Affairs of the American Psychological Association (Chair, 2011).

Nora has also worked to bring her research into the public sphere. For example, she has published a number of popular press articles, including two for the American Educator, a publication read by roughly one million teachers across the United States. In popular media, she was recently featured on the CBC documentary Where Am I?, and has spoken about her work on NPR’s The Pulse.

newcombe@temple.edu
Curriculum Vitae
http://sites.temple.edu/newcombe/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nora_Newcombe