Center Director
Sandra Waxman, PhD.
Waxman is the Louis W. Menk Chair in Psychology, a Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research, and a founder of Innovations in Developmental Science at Northwestern University. Waxman adopts a developmental, cross-linguistic and cross-cultural approach to identify what cognitive and linguistic capacities are available to infants and young children from the very start, and how these are shaped by their experience. Her work serves as a springboard for promoting positive developmental outcomes in all children.
Dr. Waxman is the recipient of awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Cattell Foundation and federal funding agencies (NIH; NSF). She is founding co-editor of the Annual Review of Developmental Science. Committed to sharing developmental science with policy-makers and the public, she is also a member of the steering committee of the Society of Research in Child Development’s Social Policy Report. Her work appears in numerous scientific journals and the media.
Professor Waxman plans to accept an incoming PhD student for Summer 2023. Apply through the Northwestern TGS website.