Biographical note

Jennifer E. Lansford is a Research Professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy and Faculty Fellow of the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University. She earned her PhD in developmental psychology from the University of Michigan. Dr. Lansford leads the Parenting Across Cultures Project, a longitudinal study of mothers, fathers, and children from China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. She has consulted for UNICEF on the evaluation of parenting programs in several low- and middle-income countries and on the development of a set of international standards for parenting programs. 

Doran C. French is a Professor at the Department of Child Development and Family Studies at Purdue University. He earned his PhD in child psychology from the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota. His research focuses on child and adolescent social competence with an emphasis on peer relationships (social status, popularity, friendship, social networks), conflict, developmental psychology (substance use, aggression, and loneliness), and Islam and child development. His work for the past 20 years has addressed the cultural context of social competence with continuing research in Indonesia and China. 
 
Mary Gauvain is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside. She received her PhD in developmental psychology from the University of Utah. Dr. Gauvain is a developmental psychologist and her research investigates social and cultural contributions to cognitive development. She has studied children’s learning inside and outside of school, children’s knowledge of water and food contamination in the United States and Africa, and child development during cultural change. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Psychological Science.