Sheila Smith, Ph.D., Co-director of the National Center for Children in Poverty, Bank Street Graduate School of Education, conducts research on interventions and policies to promote the healthy development of young children in poverty. She leads NCCP projects that provide on-line tools tracking the status of young children in poverty and deep poverty, and state policies likely to benefit these and their families. Other current and recent projects include analysis of secondary date to examine the well-being of young children in deep poverty, a study of Arkansas’ implementation of early care and education expulsion prevention policies, development of a database of research-informed early childhood mental health policies, ongoing assessments of family needs and family support programs in NH’s PDG project, case studies of developmental supports for young children involved in Child Welfare, and technical assistance to states’ strengthening their Part C Early Intervention program and policies that support infant-early childhood mental health in different systems and two-generation programs for families in deep poverty.
Before joining NCCP, Sheila directed the Forum on Children and Families which disseminated child and family research to city and state policymakers, and two Early Reading First initiatives at New York University’s Child and Family Policy Center, and Director of Research at Foundation for Child Development.
She earned her doctorate in Educational Psychology at the University of Chicago, completed a fellowship in Child Development and Social Policy at the University of Michigan, and was a Society for Research in Child Development Congressional Science Fellow.