Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (DBASSE)

Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (DBASSE)
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Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (DBASSE)
The National Academies Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education advances the behavioral and social sciences and their application to policy and practice.
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Description
The National Academies Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education advances the behavioral and social sciences and their application to policy and practice.
The goal of our work is to provide independent, evidence-based advice to decision-makers on key questions of national importance, such as:
How do we ensure the successful performance of AI and humans working collaboratively in complex real-world environments?
How do parents, teachers, and policymakers know how well students are learning?
Why has the prevalence of myopia been increasing? What are the most promising directions for prevention and treatment?
Why does life expectancy differ greatly among high-income countries, and how can the answer to that question help increase the life expectancy of Americans in the future?
To answer questions such as these, we gather experts from many disciplines who volunteer their services on study committees to provide independent, objective advice to federal agencies, Congress, foundations, and others through publicly issued reports. DBASSE produces over 30 such reports a year.
In addition to our reports, we hold workshops and symposia where researchers and policy makers can deepen their understanding of research in the social and behavioral sciences and related policy issues.
Contributors
Committee
Chair
Member
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Member
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Member
Member
Member
Member
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Member
Member
Member
Carlotta M. Arthur
Executive Director
Staff
Carlotta Arthur
Lead
Amy Stephens
Lead
Therese Lowe
Major units and sub-units
Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education Executive Office
Committee on Population
Teacher Advisory Council
Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences
Board on Environmental Change and Society
Board on Testing and Assessment
Board on Children, Youth, and Families
Board on Human-Systems Integration
Committee on Law and Justice
Committee on National Statistics
Center for Education
Board on Science Education
Center for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Education
Contact
Therese Lowe
(202) 334-2300
tlowe@nas.edu
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Claire D. Brindis
Claire D. Brindis
Claire M. Brindis (NAM) is Distinguished Professor Emeritus (on Recall) of Pediatrics and Health Policy, Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Health Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She is Emerita Director of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies (IHPS). Dr. Brindis is also a founder of the Adolescent and Young Adult Health National Resource Center and a founding director of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health (both at UCSF). Incorporating a variety of quantitative and qualitative methodologies, as well as community participatory research, Dr. Brindis’ research focuses on program evaluation and the translation of research into policy at the local, state, and national level, with a special focus on adolescents, young adults, and women’s health and health outcomes. She currently serves as the lead evaluator for the Clinical and Translation Sciences Institute (UCSF), as well as serving as Senior Advisor to the UC-wide Center on Climate, Health and Equity. Dr. Brindis earned her Dr.P.H. in public health/behavioral sciences from University of California, Berkeley and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2011.
Arun Agrawal
Arun Agrawal
Arun Agrawal (NAS) is the Pulte Family Professor of Development Policy at the Keough School of Global Affairs and the inaugural director of the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative at the University of Notre Dame. His research and teaching focus on environmental politics and sustainable development. He has published his research both as books and in the form of articles in journals including in Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), American Political Science Review, Current Anthropology and various Nature Portfolio journals among others. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and was elected to the NAS in 2018. He serves as a member of the editorial board of the PNAS and other interdisciplinary development and sustainability journals. He received his doctorate in political science from Duke University and he holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. He has held teaching and research positions at the University of Michigan; Yale University; University of Florida; McGill University; University of California, Berkeley; Indiana University; and Harvard University.
Margarita Alegria
Margarita Alegria
Margarita Alegria (NAM) is the Chief of the Disparities Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and a Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on the improvement of health care services delivery for diverse racial and ethnic populations, conceptual and methodological issues with multicultural populations, and ways to bring the community’s perspective into the design and implementation of health services. She is currently the principal investigator (PI) of four National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded research studies: Building Community Capacity for Disability Prevention for Minority Elders; Mechanisms Underlying Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Mental Disorders; The Impact of Medicaid Plans on Access to and Quality of Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Treatment; and Latino Youths in Coping with Discrimination: A Multi-Level Investigation in Micro-and Macro-Time. Dr. Alegria has published over 300 papers, editorials, intervention training manuals and several book chapters. In October 2011, she was elected as a member of the National Academy of Medicine in acknowledgement of her scientific contributions to her field. She has also been a recipient of notable awards. Most recently she was the recipient of the 2020 Rema Lapouse Award for Achievement in Epidemiology, Mental Health and Applied Public Health Statistics from the American Public Health Association. She obtained her B.A. in Psychology from Georgetown University and her Ph.D. from Temple University.
Dominique Brossard
Dominique Brossard
Dominique Brossard is professor and chair in the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an affiliate of the UW-Madison Robert & Jean Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies, the UW-Madison Energy Institute, the UW-Madison Global Health Institute, and the UW-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. She is also a principal investigator at the Morgridge Institute for Research. Her teaching responsibilities include courses in strategic communication theory and research, with a focus on science and risk communication. Brossard’s research agenda focuses on the intersection between science, media and policy with the Science Communication Incubator Lab, which she co-directs. A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the International Communication Association, Brossard is an internationally known expert in public opinion dynamics related to controversial scientific issues. She is particularly interested in understanding the role of values in shaping public attitudes and using cross-cultural analyses to understand these processes. Brossard earned her M.S. in plant biotechnology from the Ecole Nationale d’Agronomie de Toulouse and her M.P.S and Ph.D. in communication from Cornell University.
Dianne Chong
Dianne Chong
Dianne Chong (NAE) was vice president in The Boeing Co.’s Engineering, Operations & Technology organization where she managed materials and manufacturing processes and program integration. Chong was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and Washington State Academy of Science in 2017. She is member of the NAE Council, co-chairs EngineerGirl and serves on multiple committees of NAE. Chong is past-president of ABET. Chong is a member of TMS, AIAA, ASM International, SWE, Beta Gamma Sigma and Tau Beta Pi. She has served on the ASM board, is a fellow of ASM, and in 2007-08, was elected its first female president. Chong is past president of SME and a Fellow of SME. She received an award for alumna achievement from the University of Illinois in 2019 and has received numerous technical and diversity awards. Chong received bachelor’s degrees in biology and psychology from the University of Illinois. She also earned M.A. in physiology and metallurgical engineering. In 1986, Chong received her Ph.D. in metallurgical engineering from the University of Illinois. She has an Executive Master of Manufacturing Management degree from Washington University and a green belt in Six Sigma.
Robert D. Crutchfield
Robert D. Crutchfield
Robert Crutchfield is Professor Emeritus and former Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Washington. He has written extensively on labor markets and crime, and on racial and ethnic disparities in prosecution, sentencing, and imprisonment. Dr. Crutchfield is a past Vice-President of the American Society of Criminology and is currently on the Council of the American Sociological Association, and the American Sociological Association's Crime, Law, and Deviance Section. He served on the Editorial Board for the National Institute of Justice's CJ2000 project. Dr. Crutchfield has been a Deputy Editor of Criminology and has served on the editorial board of the journal Social Problems. He is currently on the editorial boards of Crime and Justice and Crime and Justice Research. Dr. Crutchfield served on the NRC Ford Foundation Minority Predoctoral Review Panel on Anthropology and Sociology.
Mary L. Cummings
Mary L. Cummings
Mary (Missy) Cummings is a professor in the George Mason University College of Engineering and Computing and is the director of the Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center. A naval officer and military pilot from 1988-1999, she was one of the U.S. Navy's first female fighter pilots. She is an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Royal Aeronautical Society Fellow, and is a Commissioner for the Global Commission on Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain. Her research interests include the application of artificial intelligence in safety-critical systems, assured autonomy, human-systems engineering, and the ethical and social impact of technology. She received her B.S. in Mathematics from the US Naval Academy, her M.S. in Space Systems Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School, and her Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia.
Sheldon H. Danziger
Sheldon H. Danziger
Sheldon H. Danziger is President Emeritus of the Russell Sage Foundation which supports social science research “for the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States” and Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Public Policy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan. Previously, he was Director of the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan and of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. From 1989 through 2013, Danziger directed the Research and Training Program on Poverty and Public Policy at the University of Michigan, a training and mentorship program for developing the careers of emerging scholars from groups underrepresented in the social sciences. Danziger’s research focused on social welfare policies and on the effects of economic, demographic, and public policy changes on trends in poverty and inequality. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a John Kenneth Galbraith Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and was a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellow. He received his BA from Columbia University and his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Mesmin Destin
Mesmin Destin
Mesmin Destin is a professor at Northwestern University in the Department of Psychology and in the School of Education & Social Policy. He is also a fellow of Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research. Dr. Destin directs a multidisciplinary lab group and engages in research that investigates social psychological mechanisms underlying socioeconomic disparities in educational outcomes during adolescence and young adulthood. He uses laboratory and field experiments to identify the resources, social factors, and interactions that influence how young people perceive themselves and pursue their futures. Dr. Destin’s research has been funded by organizations including the National Science Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the William T. Grant Foundation. He recently contributed to a report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine titled, “The Promise of Adolescence: Realizing Opportunity for All Youth”, and he has received awards including the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship Award. He earned his Ph.D. in psychology (social) from the University of Michigan.
Cleotilde Gonzalez
Cleotilde Gonzalez
Cleotilde Gonzalez is a research professor with the Social and Decision Sciences Department and the founding director of the Dynamic Decision Making Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). She has additional affiliations with the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, the Societal Computing program, and the Security and Privacy Institute at CMU. She is a lifetime fellow of the Cognitive Science Society and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. She is also a member of the Governing Board of the Cognitive Science Society. She is a senior editor for Topics in Cognitive Science, a consulting editor for Decision, and associate editor for the System Dynamics Review. She is also a member of editorial boards in journals including: Cognitive Science, Journal of Experimental Psychology-General, Human Factors. She is widely published across many fields deriving from her contributions to Cognitive Science and her computational modeling work including the development of a theory of decisions from experience called Instance-Based Learning Theory (IBLT). She has been principal or co-investigator on a wide range of multi-million and multi-year collaborative efforts with government and industry, including current efforts on Collaborative Research Alliances and Multi-University Research Initiative grants from the Army Research Laboratories and Army Research Office. She has mentored more than 30 post-doctoral fellows and doctoral students, many of whom have pursued successful careers in academia, government, and industry. Dr. Gonzalez earned her Ph.D. in Management Info Systems & Human Factors from Texas Tech University.
Leah H. Jamieson
Leah H. Jamieson
Leah H. Jamieson (NAE) is Ransburg Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University, professor by courtesy in Purdue’s School of Engineering Education, and John Edwardson Dean Emerita of Engineering. She is co-founder and past director of the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program. She is past president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), served as co-chair of the Computer Research Association's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research, is past chair of the Anita Borg Institute Board, and is co-organizer of the Women of National Academy of Engineering (NAE) activities. Jamieson’s recognitions include the NAE Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education, IEEE Mulligan Education Medal, National Science Foundation Director’s Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars, and the Anita Borg Institute’s Award for Social Impact. She is a member of the NAE, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a Fellow of both the IEEE and the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). She has served on NRC committees on public understanding of engineering, STEM education, and the impact of COVID-19 on careers of women in academic STEM. She currently chairs the committee for the National Academies Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communication. Dr. Jamieson holds a B.S. in mathematics from MIT, a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton, and honorary doctorates from Drexel and NJIT.
Jacqueline Jones
Jacqueline Jones
Jacqueline Jones is former president & CEO of the Foundation for Child Development. She is a policy maker, researcher, and educator. During the first term of the Obama administration, she served as the senior advisor on early learning to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and as the country’s first deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Early Learning in the U.S. Department of Education. During that period, she led the design of the Education Department’s strategic plan for early learning, the initial $500M Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge competition, and the formation of the first Office of Early Learning within the U.S. Department of Education. Dr. Jones represented Secretary Duncan across federal agencies, nationally, and internationally on early childhood issues. Prior to federal service, she was the assistant commissioner for the Division of Early Childhood Education in the New Jersey State Department of Education, where she oversaw the alignment of standards, curricula, and assessments for preschool through 3rd grade programs, and she was responsible for an annual budget of over $550M to implement New Jersey’s state funded preschool programs. Dr. Jones worked for over 15 years as a senior research scientist at the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, NJ where her work focused on documentation and assessment of young children’s learning. She has been a visiting faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a full-time faculty member at the City University of New York. Dr. Jones has written in the area of early childhood assessment and is particularly interested in the development of effective early childhood assessment systems for school districts and states. She has been invited to speak across the country and internationally, and she has served on a number of national advisory committees, including the Pew National Early Childhood Accountability Task Force and the National Research Council’s Committee on Developmental Outcomes and Assessments for Young Children. She is currently a member of the National Academies Board on Children Youth and Families. Dr. Jones received both M.A .and Ph.D. degrees from Northwestern University.
Karen Kafadar
Karen Kafadar
Karen Kafadar is Commonwealth Professor and former Chair of Statistics at University of Virginia. Her research focuses on statistical methods and data analysis in the physical, chemical, biological, medical, and forensic sciences. Dr. Kafadar has held positions at NIST, Hewlett Packard, National Cancer Institute, University of Colorado-Denver and Indiana University. She co-authored several reports for the National Academy of Sciences, including Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward (2009), Review of the Scientific Approaches Used During the FBI’s Investigation of the Anthrax Letters (2011), and Identifying the Culprit: Assessing Eyewitness Identification (2014). Her research has been recognized with several awards, and her most recent work concerns statistical methodology for randomized cancer screening trials and estimating error rates in eyewitness identification and forensic science. Dr. Kafadar is a Fellow of ASA, AAAS, and ISI; former Editor of JASA Reviews, Technometrics, and The Annals of Applied Statistics; 2012 President of the International Association for Statistical Computing, and 2019 President of the American Statistical Association. She received her BS and MS from Stanford and her PhD from Princeton
Diana M. Liverman
Diana M. Liverman
Diana M. Liverman (NAS) is a Regents Professor of Geography and Development, University of Arizona (UA); and is associated with the Center for Latin American Studies and the Arid Lands program at UA. She is affiliated with Linacre College at Oxford University where she was the director of the Environmental Change Institute. Dr. Liverman has taught at Oxford, Penn State and the University of Wisconsin-Madison and worked at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Her research focuses on environmental issues and the human dimensions of global environmental change, especially the social causes and consequences of climate change. Dr. Liverman studies the fate of the disadvantaged and disempowered in a changing climate – the poor, women, children, and other species - and more generally the political ecology of global environmental change. Her expertise and research interests focus on the human dimensions of environmental change, connecting earth and social sciences to understand challenges of drought and climate change, climate policy, climate change communication, food security, land use, and international environmental governance. Dr. Liverman has advised a wide range of government committees, NGOs and businesses on climate issues. She earned her Ph.D. from UCLA, M.A. from University of Toronto, B.A. from University College London.
C. Matthew Snipp
C. Matthew Snipp
C. Matthew Snipp is Burnet C. and Milfred Finley Wohlford professor of sociology at Stanford University. At Stanford, he currently serves as the Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement and director of the Secure Data Center, Snipp has written extensively on Native Americans, focusing specifically on the interaction of Native Americans and the U.S. Snipp has served on the Census Bureau’s Technical Advisory Committee on Racial and Ethnic Statistics and the Native American Population Advisory Committee. He is the former director of the Center for Comparative Studies of Race and Ethnicity. Prior to moving to Stanford, Snipp was associate professor and professor of rural sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he held affiliate appointments with several other units, and assistant and associate professor of sociology at the University of Maryland. He has a M.S. and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Snipp is a former member of the National Academies’ Committee on National Statistics, and he previously served as a member of the Panel to Review the 2010 Census, the Panel on Residence Rules in the Decennial Census, the Panel on the Research on Future Census Methods, and as co-chair of the Steering Committee for a Workshop on Developing a New National Survey on Social Mobility.
Linda A. Teplin
Linda A. Teplin
Linda A. Teplin is the Owen L. Coon Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, where she is also the Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Psychiatry and Director of the Health Disparities and Public Policy Program. In contrast to many other public health researchers, who focus on patients or general population samples, Linda studies people who are underrepresented in the health care system—people who live in jails, prisons, and under-resourced neighborhoods. Since receiving her Ph.D. from Northwestern University, she has conducted landmark studies that have advanced public health policy for people who are socioeconomically disadvantaged as well as racial and ethnic minorities—those who suffer most from health inequities. For example, her work has highlighted the ubiquitous mental health needs of those incarcerated in jails and detention centers. Most now routinely screen for mental health problems and provide treatment or linkage services. Her work has been supported by more than 25 grants from the National Institutes of Health, the CDC, Department of Justice, and other federal agencies. She publishes in prominent journals that are widely read and broadly distributed, such as the JAMA Network journals. In addition, Dr. Teplin works tirelessly to ensure her findings provide the empirical basis for changes in public health policy. For example, her studies are cited in amicus briefs to the Supreme Court, presented in congressional hearings, and widely disseminated by federal agencies and advocacy groups. Her many honors include receiving a MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health and being elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Most recently, she received the 2024 American Public Health Association Award for Excellence.
Mary C. Waters
Mary C. Waters
Mary C. Waters (NAS) is the John L. Loeb Professor of Sociology and the PVK Professor of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. A sociologist and demographer, her work has focused on the integration of immigrants and their children, immigration policy, disasters and their aftermath, and the measurement and meaning of racial and ethnic identity. Her current projects include a study of older Latino immigrants and the American welfare state, and a longitudinal study of mobility and recovery among survivors of Hurricane Katrina. She is an elected member of the American Philosophical Society (2005), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006) and the National Academy of Sciences (2010). She has a B.A. in Philosophy from Johns Hopkins University, an M.A. in Sociology, an M.A. in Demography, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. She chaired the NRC Panel on The Integration of Immigrants into American Society (2015).
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