Rebecca Ryan
Dr. Ryan joined the faculty this August after completing an NIH-funded Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy Studies, a position she held since earning a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University. Her research explores the implications of the recent rise in nonmarital childbirth for young children’s well-being as well as the relationship between parenting and children’s development more generally. Both strains of research explore two fundamental influences on children’s early environments: the quality of parent-child interactions and parents’ ability to invest time and money in children’s environments. Her recent work aims to identify the unique role fathers play in young children development by assessing the quality and quantity of the time they spend interacting with children and the impact of their absence across family contexts. In addition to comparing parental inputs across married and unwed families, and mothers and fathers, Dr. Ryan studies how public policies can promote parenting quality and material investment within unwed families, such as programs to encourage unwed father involvement and provide child care subsidies. Her broad aim is to link developmental psychology to child and family policy in an effort to enrich both fields.
