Stephanie Curenton

Stephanie M. Curenton, Ph.D. joined the School of Education as a tenured associate professor. Her involvement with the school spans across the Educational Leadership & Policy Studies, Early Childhood Education, Language & Literacy, and Counseling Psychology & Applied Human Development programs. Dr. Curenton also heads the Ecology of School Readiness Lab, the mission of which is to examine the factors that impact young children’s school success and to communicate findings to practitioners and policy makers.

Dr. Curenton studies the social, cognitive, and language development of low-income and minority children within various ecological contexts, such as parent-child interactions, early childhood education programs, early childhood workforce programs, and related state and federal policies. She served as past associate editor for Early Childhood Research Quarterly and Early Education and Development. She was awarded a research policy fellowship from the Society for Research on Child Development (SRCD)/American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and worked in Office of Child Care. She has served on education non-profit boards for National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and local Head Start programs.

Her research has been funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the Office of Program Research and Evaluation (OPRE), the National Academy of Science Ford Pre-doctoral Fellowship, American Education Research Association (AERA), the Foundation for Child Development, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. She earned her Ph.D. in Developmental and Community Psychology from the University of Virginia.

Dr. Curenton will also lead the School of Education’s community participatory research and outreach efforts with early childhood programs in Boston.