Roberta M. Golinkoff

Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D., H. Rodney Sharp Professor in the School of Education at the University of Delaware has joint appointments in the Department of Psychology and the Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science. Her research focuses on how children learn language as well as on preschool education and the benefits of play. In addition to her Guggenheim Fellowship, she has received a James McKeen Cattell Sabbatical award,  published twelve books, written over one hundred papers, and presented the findings of her research all over the world. Her research is funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. In September 2009, she was awarded a stimulus grant from NIH to study preschoolers’ knowledge of geometric shapes and how having this information relates to mathematical ability.

Committed to disseminating the research labors of her field, she wrote (with Kathy Hirsh-Pasek), How Babies Talk: The Magic and Mystery of Language in the First Three Years of Life (Penguin); Einstein Never Used Flash Cards: How Our Children Really Learn and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less (Rodale), and A Mandate for Playful Learning in Preschool (Oxford). In addition, she has written Action Meets Word: How Children Learn Verbs and PLAY = LEARNING: How Play Motivates and Enhances Children’s Cognitive and Social-Emotional Growth, and (both Oxford). Dr. Golinkoff is also a spokesperson for research in developmental science, frequently giving interviews or writing essays for print outlets (such as the New York Times), online sites (such as Urban Baby), and electronic media (radio and television outlets such as Good Morning America) and is currently an Associate Editor of the journal Child Development.

With her long-standing collaborator (Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek), Dr. Golinkoff recently won the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Service Award for “…disseminating and translating psychological research and making it accessible to policymakers and the general public through publications, public lectures and advisory roles with child-related organizations.”