Yuko Munakata

Yuko Munakata is uniquely positioned to bring the truth about parenting and child development to a broad audience.

Munakata has taught undergraduate and graduate courses on this topic for more than fifteen years, engaging students with surprising scientific discoveries and their implications for how we become who we are. She is known for developing innovative theories of child development that integrate a diversity of findings, methods and perspectives, informed by her decades of work investigating children's behavior and brain function, and genetic and social influences. Her message should unsettle -- but ultimately empower -- anyone who has ever been a parent, or a child.

She is an elected fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the American Psychological Association. Her work on child development has been funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1998 and has been published in top scientific journals and featured in The Atlantic, Parents Magazine -- and even The Onion. She has co-edited two academic books on brain and cognitive development and co-authored two editions of a textbook on computational cognitive neuroscience. She served as associate editor of Psychological Review, one of the field's premier journals. She has received awards for her research, teaching and mentoring.