Welcome Elisabeth McClure, Cooney Center Research Fellow

We’re pleased to introduce our newest Cooney Center Fellow, Elisabeth McClure.  She has just joined us this month from Georgetown University, where she is completing her PhD in Human Development and Public Policy.

Elisabeth’s graduate work was inspired by research about the video deficit effect, which finds that children under two years old learn better from live interaction with people than from video presentations. Her work on video chat with children under two years old included a family media usage survey among parents across the Washington, D.C. area, in which she found that a vast majority of families reported that their young children have used video chat, and nearly 40 percent used it once a week. Encouragingly, her research found that both adults and young children seem to be positively engaged by video chat, despite the challenges it can present. You can read more about her work in The Atlantic.

We’re thrilled to be working with Elisabeth, whose interest in developmental psychology and public policy makes her a perfect fit for the Cooney Center team. Over the next year, she will focus on several projects, including  InTEL: Integrating Technology in Early Literacy and an NSF-funded project to bring together researchers, policymakers, and early childhood program leaders to find ways to bring evidence-based research about early childhood learning in STEM to the classroom.

We hope you will join us in welcoming our newest fellow!