The program offers training and career development through a combination of formal seminars and informal, regular interactions with preceptors and other scholars in the field. We have devised a curriculum designed to provide instruction in child and adolescent development among understudied populations as well as research methods to better equip trainee scholars to conduct independent research on variations in race and ethnicity, gender, and social class and how these interact with the risk and resiliency factors that contribute to the development of children and adolescents.
The instruction also includes topics such as research ethics and preparing for IRB review, developing and initiating a research program, writing for publication in peer-reviewed journals, strengthening presentation skills, and most importantly, submitting grant proposals for external funding.
The training and career development seminars are conducted by preceptors with the participation of visiting program faculty. The visiting program faculty are all scholars in the field of childhood and adolescence who have a track record of involvement with externally funded research, a history of interdisciplinary collaborations on research with children and adolescents from underrepresented populations, and publications resulting from these collaborations.
Local and area lectures and seminars
Trainees are expected to take advantage of lectures and seminars at area colleges and universities beyond Wellesley College. The Boston area is rich in resources for postdoctoral trainees. For example, recent local lectures have included the mechanisms of word learning, interdisciplinary dialogue on women’s health, changes in family patterns, social policy of marriage and fatherhood, the changing economics of families, globalization in Latin America, Native American women and colonial violence, generating life histories from longitudinal survey data, the global poor, racial and ethnic disparities in public health, and Islamic culture.
Postdoctoral trainees can apply to receive coverage for the tuition costs of one graduate level course in either research methods or statistics (at either Brandeis University or the Harvard Graduate School of Education).
