Arts & Sciences | Engineering
Graduate Admissions
Explore programs

Child Study and Human Development

Doctorate
Overview
Application Requirements
Faculty
Alumni Profile
Related Programs
Apply Request Info
Application Deadlines
Fall: Dec 1
Spring: n/a
Summer: n/a
School/Department

Child Study and Human Development

Program Director
Sara Johnson
Location
Medford/Somerville
Format
On-campus
Commitment Options
Full-time
Average Duration
Varies
Credits
Varies
Contact

gradadmissions@tufts.edu


Overview

The Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development's Doctoral Program offers small class sizes; a personalized path of study; mentorship from professors at the top of their fields; collaborative, cross-discipline research opportunities; exclusive internship opportunities; and a learning framework that emphasizes research, practice, and integration. As a student in this program, you will gain the foundational skills and knowledge to make an impact in the lives of children and their families.

Program Outcomes

PhD candidates in the Child Studies and Human Development Department work closely with a primary mentor and are supported by a community of scholars in various ways. Through a rigorous combination of research, training, coursework, and internships, students develop substantive expertise in one area of scholarship. In addition, they develop competencies in ten other areas, including foundational knowledge of the field, methods and statistics, research, professionalism, grantsmanship, publication, applied work, dissemination, cultural processes, teaching, and mentoring.

The doctoral program in Child Study and Human Development prepares students to make important contributions to theory, research, policy, and practice in diverse settings. Alumni of Eliot-Pearson's doctoral program have gone on to work in a variety of settings, including:

  • Academia
  • Children's media
  • Technology for children
  • Toy companies
  • Learning environments
  • Congressional policy fellowships
  • Early childhood education
  • Secondary and higher education administration
  • International early childhood consultation
  • International NGOs (e.g., UNICEF, World Bank)
  • Research firms and organizations

Application Requirements

  • Application fee
  • Resume/CV
  • Personal statement
  • Official TOEFL, IELTS, or Duolingo English Test scores, if applicable
  • Transcripts
  • Three letters of recommendation
  • A supplemental essay (maximum 500 words) that answers the prompt: "How do differences in cultural and/or contextual processes impact theory, research, or practice in your area of scholarly interest?"

The Child Study and Human Development's admissions process looks at each student as an individual, and reviews applications for strengths and indications that the applicant will be successful in the program.

Final admissions decisions are based on whether a student's interests are a match for one of the faculty who has decided to admit a student for the upcoming year. Prior to applying, you should research the department's faculty members as well as the various departmental labs, research areas, and research projects to ensure the Child Student and Human Development PhD aligns with your interest areas and goals. Please note that the only faculty members who can supervisor doctoral students are Assistant Professors, Associate Professors, or Professors. Other faculty (including Full-Time Lecturers, Senior Lecturers, Research Assistant Professors, Research Associate Professors, Affiliated Faculty) are not able to supervise doctoral students.

Tuition and Financial Aid

See Tuition and Financial Aid information for GSAS Programs.

Faculty

Person Placeholder

Sara Johnson

Evans Family Assistant Professor
Adolescence and young adulthood; identity development; civic development and engagement; youth contribution; critical consciousness; quantitative methods (including mixture models such as latent class and latent profile analyses); positive youth development
Person Placeholder

Eileen Crehan

Assistant Professor
Neurodevelopmental disorders; autism spectrum disorder; sexuality education; social perception; eye tracking; dimensional measurement of psychological symptoms
Academic Leave
Person Placeholder

Julie Dobrow

Senior Lecturer
Children and media; ethnicity/gender and media; adolescents and media use. I am currently working on a three-tiered interdisciplinary research project along with Chip Gidney, Mary Casey, and Cynthia Smith at Eliot-Pearson, as well as faculty in several other departments at Tufts. The first piece of this project is a long-running content analysis of children's animated programming. We are updating prior work we've done that investigates images of race, ethnicity and gender in children's animated programming using both content and sociolinguistic analysis. The second part of this research is an exploration of why stereotyping persists in children's media. We are examining this through intensive interviews with content creators, writers, directors, vocal casting directors, and actors. The third part of the project is empirical research we're conducting with children, to see how children make sense of gender, race, and ethnicity in the animated programs they see. My applied work includes doing many media literacy workshops for parents and for children and for children in a variety of settings, and consulting work with colleagues at WGBH, one of the leading creators of children's educational media. I have written about children and media issues in a variety of academic and popular venues. My other research is historical in nature. I've written one biography of the relatively unknown mother/daughter team who made Emily Dickinson into one of the most-known women anywhere in the world, and am starting work on a couple of other biographical projects.
Person Placeholder

M. Ann Easterbrooks

Professor
Developmental risk and resilience; child maltreatment; parent-child emotional availability and attachment relationships; maternal depression; adolescent parenting; relational and contextual supports for thriving
Person Placeholder

Calvin Gidney

Associate Professor
Linguistics; literacy, sociolinguistic development; dyslexia in African-American children; language of children's cartoons; children's name-calling
Person Placeholder

Theo Klimstra

Senior Lecturer
Adolescence and young adulthood; identity development; personality development; narrative identity; quantitative methods (including structural equation models)
Person Placeholder

Richard Lerner

Professor and Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science
The application of developmental science across the life span; developmental systems theory; personality and social development in adolescence; developmental methodology; programs and policies for children, youth, and families; university-community collaboration and outreach scholarship. Developmental Science
Person Placeholder

Tama Leventhal

Professor and Department Chair of Child Study & Human Development
Neighborhood and community context; housing context; family context; poverty and socioeconomic status; social policy; adolescence; immigrant young children
Academic Leave
Person Placeholder

Jayanthi Mistry

Professor
Theoretical perspectives on the integration of culture and human development; Narratives of identity and place in communities; Navigating multiple cultural worlds, with a focus on ethnic minority, immigrant, and under-represented communities; Interpretive and Narrative Analysis methods in the study of children and families.
Person Placeholder

Ellen Pinderhughes

Professor
Families and children in challenging circumstances; parenting and family functioning among diverse families; ethnic-racial socialization processes; cultural and contextual influences; child and youth outcomes; adoption and foster care
Person Placeholder

Christine McWayne

Professor
Early childhood education, school success of young children at risk due to poverty, parenting and family-school partnerships in diverse ethnocultural communities, cuturally inclusive STEM curiculum, community-based research collaborations.
Person Placeholder

Kerri Modry-Mandell

Senior Lecturer
Pediatric psychology; Developmental Psychopathology; Family Functioning and Adaptation to Pediatric Chronic Illness; Children's Sibling Relationships; Psychological Consultation and Collaboration and Therapeutic Space Design; Grief Support; Pediatric Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Developmental Initiatives
Person Placeholder

Martha Pott

Distinguished Senior Lecturer
Personal and social development; biological & evolutionary roots of human development Biological and evolutionary substrates of human development; the role of eye-contact in social development.
Person Placeholder

Fernando Salinas-Quiroz

Assistant Professor
I specialize in working with 2SPLGBTQIA+ individuals and "non-traditional families". Through my research, I have been able to offer robust empirical evidence that informs both academic and policy debates about discrimination and sexual stigma; the population's attitudes towards "modern families"; and the quality of interactions between gay fathers/lesbian mothers and their children, focusing on the study of attachment relationships. I am passionate about studying the development of children who are raised outside the context of a traditional family, as well as outside of the binary (binary is for computers, not gender!). While research has focused on challenges faced by 2SPLGBTQIA+ folks, my work brings attention to how they remain stable and well-adjusted in face of social prejudice, i.e., a resilience-based perspective with a focus on family strengths. I am interested in Community-based participatory research with sexual and gender minorities, folks with immigrant parents, black/brown/indigenous "non-traditional" families, and the development of 2SPLGBTQIA+ individuals in non-western contexts.
Person Placeholder

W. George Scarlett

Senior Lecturer
As editor of the Tomorrow's Earth Stewards online resource for environmental educators and others) (see (https://sites.tufts.edu/earthstewards/), I work directly with my staff and students to bring the best research and practices to the attention of our readers -- as well as the best frameworks for understanding complex subjects having to do with environmental breakdown, eco-restoration, and developmentally appropriate practices that are cultural situated. My research interests also include work studying graduates of the New England Aquarium's teen internship program -- as a way to develop a practical model for evaluating the development of earth stewards. In the past, my research has included research on early symbol formation in a variety of play media (blocks, dolls, etc.), assessing the development of sensorimotor play in children with classic autism ('Kanner's" syndrome), the development of prayer in adolescence, and socially isolated preschoolers. The overarching theme has always been that of promoting more powerful models of development. Connected to my research projects have been writing projects aimed at offering a developmental perspective on a variety of major topics, These writing projects include textbooks, encyclopedias, and handbook chapters on children's play, classroom management, and religious and spiritual development.

Student and Alumni Spotlights

Carolina Gonçalves

The Power of Faculty-Student Mentorship

Carolina Gonçalves, PhD Candidate in Child Study and Human Development, discusses faculty mentorship at Tufts and how her experiences with mentorship are now coming full circle.

Related Programs