Early Education & Child Development SIG

Melissa Sherfinski is an Associate Professor of Early Childhood and Elementary Education in the School of Education at West Virginia University. She is a former Kindergarten and elementary school teacher and childcare provider, who has developed and teaches a range of classes for preservice and in-service teachers and mentors doctoral candidates enrolled in WVU's Ed.D. and Ph.D. programs. All three of her degrees were earned from UW-Madison. Her research agenda focuses on critical questions of culture, identity, and power related to learning in preschool and early elementary school contexts and in the lives of teachers. She is interested in how early childhood and elementary preservice and inservice teachers can forge deeper relationships and promote learning with children, families, and communities in their local places whether they be rural, suburban, or urban. She has written about this topic in her book, Rooted in Belonging: Critical Place-based Learning in Early Childhood and Elementary Education, as well as in numerous early childhood and teacher education journal articles.

Myae Han is a professor of Early Childhood Education in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Delaware. Her areas of research include literacy and play, early intervention and implementation. She is a past president of The Association for the Study of Play (TASP) and Literacy Development in Young Children (LDYC) SIG at the International Literacy Association. She has directed various federal and state-funded grant projects, including three Early Reading First grants funded by the US Department of Education, Early Head Start University Partnership grant, Child Care Research Partnership grant funded by US Department of Health and Human Services.

Jennifer Baumgartner is an associate professor in the School of Education at Louisiana State University and teaches early childhood education and child development in the PK-3 teacher certification program and early childhood education graduate program. Her research addresses critical issues in early childhood education including how philosophies and/or knowledge are translated into practices in children's developmental contexts and stress among teachers and children in early care settings. She has published in several journals, including Journal of Health Psychology, Journal of Research in Childhood Education, Early Childhood Education Journal, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Family Relations, Early Child Development and Care, Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, and Young Children. She has served as Junior Member at Large (2009-2011), conference chair and discussant for the SIG and presenter at many conferences. She also serves as the faculty advisor for the AERA Doctoral Student Cohort at LSU.

Alison Hooper is an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Alabama. Alison’s research centers on improving early care and education access and quality, with a focus on home-based child care settings. She holds a Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Delaware. Her work has been funded by the Office of Program Research and Evaluation in the Administration for Children and Families, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation. Alison is a former kindergarten teacher and enjoys training, supporting, and researching preservice and novice early childhood teachers. Visit her faculty website for more information: https://alhooper.people.ua.edu/

Ji-Young Choi is an associate professor of Human Sciences in the College of Education and Human Ecology and a faculty associate in the Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy at The Ohio State University. She studies why individual differences in development emerge and how we can better support school readiness for children from linguistically and economically diverse backgrounds. Her work has been supported by the US Department of Health and Human Services, Spencer Foundation, Society for Research in Child Development, and the American Education Research Association (Division G) among others. Click for faculty profile.

Anamarie Whitaker is an Assistant Professor of Early Care and Education Policy in the department of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Delaware. Her research primarily focuses on early care and education programs and how these settings influence children’s development in early childhood and longitudinally. She is specifically interested in understanding how early care and education policies promote program quality and how state and federal policies are implemented at a local level. She has extensive experience in policy analysis, program evaluation, and secondary data analyses. Her research has been published in academic journals including "Child Development," "AERA Open," "Developmental Psychology," and "Early Childhood Research Quarterly."

Sohyun “Soh” Meacham, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Literacy Education at the University of Northern Iowa. Soh’s research centers on young children’s language and literacy development in various early childhood classroom contexts. She is specifically interested in how children’s playful and dialogic interactions in classrooms are associated with their literacy practices. In addition, she is interested in multicultural children’s literature for diversity and social justice. She is currently analyzing disability portrayals in picturebooks with racially/ethnically-focused awards for children’s literature such as the Coretta Scott King Award, the Pura Belpré Award, and Asian-Pacific American Award for Literature.

Katy Chapman is an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Studies at the University of Florida. She is a former Kindergarten and Preschool teacher and Confidential Assistant with the Early Learning Team in the Office of the Secretary at the United States Department of Education. She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Policy and Evaluation from Arizona State University. She currently teaches courses focused on early childhood care and education policy, early childhood studies, and qualitative research methods. Her research interests focus on the intersection of policy, leadership, and financial investments to address inequities across early childhood systems. She is actively involved in several research projects that are focused on educational leadership preparation in early childhood education and care, the implementation and effect of educational policies, and continuity of care at times of external shocks for young children and their families. Her research has been published in Teachers College Record, AERA Open, and the Journal of Education Policy.

Cara L. Kelly is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Delaware. Her research interests broadly focus on ECE programs, policies that impact young children, and child development. She focuses on understanding how ECE providers define quality in ECE programs and how classroom quality is related to children’s development; she also investigates whether developmental theories, such as ecological theory or the structure-process-outcome model, influence ECE policies and, in turn, whether ECE policies influence children’s development. Her work has been published in academic journals, such as Early Childhood Education Journal, Children and Youth Services Review, and Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment.

Tomoko Wakabayashi, Ed.D. is Associate Professor and Coordinator of the PhD program in Early Childhood Education at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. Her research interest includes identifying practices that promote high quality and equitable early care and education. She co-leads the early childhood subgroup of Oakland University’s partnership with the neighboring city of Pontiac (OU-Pontiac Initiative Early Childhood Education or OUPIECE), and conducts community-based participatory action research. Dr. Wakabayashi received her Ed.D. in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

Dr. Grace Keengwe is an Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of North Dakota. Grace’s research interest focuses on early childhood practices that enhance school readiness of at-risk children. H research focuses specifically on family teacher relationships, school readiness of immigrant bilingual/children, assessment practices of early childhood teachers, Head Start programs, and mentor-coaching. She has researched and authored articles, book chapters, and edited a number of books in these areas.

Cindy Wiltshire is an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education in the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Texas at El Paso. Directing the Wiltshire Lab for Teachers and Children, Cindy’s research investigates questions of early childhood education teacher well-being, examining associations between perceived and physiological measures of stress, teacher warmth, and children's outcomes in cognitive and socioemotional development. She holds an Ed.D. in Early Childhood Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Her work has been funded by the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families and by the ChangeX United States Community Play Fund supported by the LEGO Foundation and Playful Learning Landscapes. Cindy served as a classroom teacher for more than 20 years, spending 12 years in the early childhood context. For more information, visit her faculty website.

Sophia Han is an Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education and Teacher Education program at the University of South Florida. Her research centers around the theme of responsive and equitable teaching and learning in early childhood with a specific focus on language, identity, and social competence development of culturally minoritized children. She has examined teacher's roles in children's social competence development, conducted cross-cultural studies on teachers' beliefs and practices supporting children's social competence to better understand the nuanced appreciation of the topic, and critically analyzed teacher education programs to promote pre-service teachers' professional identity development when navigating diverse and complex early childhood settings. Her recent research is about unpacking how Asian American children and families navigate and make sense of racially charged societal climate in an effort to support early childhood teachers and teacher educators overcome stereotypical understanding and instructional approaches. She earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with specialization in Early Childhood Education from the University of Florida. han1@usf.edu

Julia T. Atiles is an Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at East Tennessee State University. She teaches various courses to undergraduate and graduate students in topics such as child development (Birth-8, typical and atypical), curriculum and approaches to learning, and supervises field requirements. Her research examines the teacher efficacy of pre- and in-service teachers in relation to classroom management and working with English language learners both in national and international contexts. Former experiences include preschool teaching, lab school director, program coordinator, and program development. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Early Education/Child Development Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) as conference program co-chair, a position she previously held from 2013-2016. Atiles@etsu.edu

X. Christine Wang is a Professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her research interests include young children's learning and collaboration in technology-rich environments, scientific inquiry and young children's epistemic reasoning, early literacy and design experiment, and early childhood education in international contexts. Dr. Wang has published over 50 research journal articles and book chapters, and conducted over 100 conference presentations and invited international presentations. Her work has been supported by Spencer Foundations and IRA Alva Knight Grant. Her research earned the honor of AERA 2007 "Jan Hawkins Early Career Contributions to Humanistic Research and Scholarship in Learning Technologies Award." Dr. Wang is actively involved in professional organizations. She is an Associate Editor of Early Childhood Research Quarterly and the former Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Research in Childhood Education (2017-2019). In addition to managing the EE/CD SIG website, she co-chaired the SIG's conference program in 2016 and 2017.