Professor
Department of Educational Psychology
Ph.D. 1977, Boston University
Deborah Lowe Vandell is a Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology. She holds joint appointments in the
Department of Psychology and the School of Human Ecology. She is a member of the Maternal and Child Health review
panel at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). She has served as an Associate Editor
for Child Development and on the editorial boards for Contemporary Psychology, Developmental Psychology and Journal
of Family Issues. She is a Principal Investigator with the NICHD Study of Child Care and Youth Development, a multi-site
collaborative study of the effects of child care, schools, and families on children's developmental outcomes through middle
childhood. Other current research interests include examining relations among children's peer, sibling, and parent-child
relationships over time. She regularly offers courses in theories of human development, developmental research
methodologies, social and personality development, and issues in child care research.
Vandell, D. L., & Posner, J. K. (1999). Conceptualization and measurement of children's after-school environments. In S. L. Friedman & T. D. Wachs (Eds.) Assessment of the environment across the lifespan. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association Press.
Posner, J. K., & Vandell, D. L. (1999). After-school activities and the development of low-income urban children: A longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology, 35, 868-879.
Shumow, L., Vandell, D. L., & Posner, J. K. (1999). Risk and resilience in the urban neighborhood: Predictors academic performance among low-income elementary school children. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 45, 309-331.
*NICHD Early Child Care Research Network (1999). Child outcomes when child-care center class meet recommended standards for quality. American Journal of Public Health, 89, 1072-1077.
*NICHD Early Child Care Research Network (1999). Chronicity of maternal depressive symptoms, maternal sensitivity, and child functioning at 36 months: Results of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care. Developmental Psychology, 35, 1248-1259.
Vandell, D. L., & Shumow, L. (1999). After-school child care programs. The Future of Children. Vol. 9. Los Altos, CA: The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, 64-80.
Vandell, D. L., Dadisman, K., & Gallagher, K. (2000). Another look at the elephant: Child care in the nineties (pp. 91-120). In R. Taylor (Ed.) Resilience across contexts: Family, work, culture and community. New Jersey: Erlbaum.
*NICHD Early Child Care Research Network (in press). Characteristics and quality of child care for toddlers and preschoolers. Applied Developmental Sciences.
Vandell, D. L. (in press). Parents, peer groups, and other socializing influences. Developmental Psychology.
*NICHD Early Child Care Research Network (in press). The relation of child care to cognitive and language development. Child Development.
*NICHD Early Child Care Research Network (in press). Factors associated with fathers' caregiving activities and sensitivity with young children. Journal of Family Psychology.
*Deborah Lowe Vandell is a member of the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network and a contributing author to the designated papers. The Network publishes all research pertaining to its core hypotheses under the corporate banner, rather than individually named authors, in recognition of the collaborative nature of the study.