Stephanie Carlson
Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota
Associate Professor
Dr. Stephanie M. Carlson is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Child Development, where co-directs (with Professor Philip D. Zelazo) the Developmental Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab. She is also a faculty member of the Center for Neurobehavioral Development, University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on the development of executive function (self-control of thought and action) and related skills (e.g., theory of mind and pretend play/imagination) in children from preschool through early adolescence. She uses multiple levels of analysis to study developmental change, including behavioral, brain, and cross-cultural studies. Her work on self-control is funded in part by foundations devoted to youth development (Jacobs Fdn.) and child health (behaviors to prevent childhood obesity; Robert Wood Johnson Fdn.). She is currently directing a NICHD-funded project designed to validate and norm a new, brief executive function measure for preschool children. She is also co-PI on a formative research project to develop measures of executive function for the National Children's Study, and co-PI on an IES-funded project to develop intervention tools for executive function in homeless and other highly disadvantaged preschoolers. New research interests include affective and economic decision-making and temperament in children from diverse populations. Dr. Carlson is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (Div. 7), has been elected to Sigma Xi, and serves as Vice President of the Jean Piaget Society as well as several editorial boards of leading scientific journals including Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, and the Journal of Cognition and Development.
Working Group
Additional Information
Email: smc@umn.edu
Homepage: Carlson Lab: http://www.cehd.umn.edu/icd/Carlson/