Maureen Callanan

Maureen Callanan is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at University of California, Santa Cruz. She holds a BA from Mount Holyoke College and a PhD from Stanford University. Her research focuses on young children’s developing understanding of the natural world in the context of everyday family conversations. Taking a sociocultural approach, she investigates young children’s development in families and communities. She has a longstanding research partnership with Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose and has been PI or co-PI on several NIH- and NSF-funded projects investigating children’s informal science learning. She was a partner in the Center for Informal Learning and Schools (CILS) and a co-author of the 2009 National Academies volume Learning Science in Informal Environments. She has been Associate Editor for Psychological Bulletin and Journal of Cognition and Development, past chair of AERA’s SIG on Informal Learning Environments Research, and past President of the Cognitive Development Society.