Northwestern News on the World Wide Web: http://www.northwestern.edu/univ-relations/media/
CONTACT: Wendy Leopold at (847) 491-4890 or at w-leopold@northwestern.edu
EVANSTON, Ill. --- Northwestern University Professor Greg J. Duncan, a researcher nationally known for his work on income dynamics, child poverty and welfare reform, has been named director of the Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
Duncan, professor of education and social policy and faculty fellow of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern, is co-editor with Jeanne Brooks-Gunn of "Consequences of Growing up Poor" (1997) and with Brooks-Gunn and Lawrence Aber of the two volume "Neighborhood Poverty" (1997). He continues to study neighborhood effects on the development of children and adolescents and other issues involving welfare reform, income distribution, and their consequences for children and adults.
Duncan serves on the Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development, which recently released "From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development." Published by National Academy Press this month, the report suggests how policy makers, educators, child care providers and others can apply decades of research on children's cognitive and social development to child policy and everyday dealings with preschoolers. It also debunks popular myths about the early childhood period, including the concept that the neurological window of brain development opportunity slams shut by ages 3 or 5.
Duncan is a member of the interdisciplinary Family and Child Well-Being Research Network of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the MacArthur Network on Successful Pathways Through Middle Childhood and on the Family and the Economy. He served on the Advisory Committee on Head Start Research and Evaluation.
The Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center on Poverty Reseach's mission is to advance our understanding of the causes and consequences of poverty and the effect of policies designed to reduce poverty.
10/16/00