Alumni Profiles

Yuuko Uchikoshi, Human Development

Yuuko Uchikoshi, Ed.D.'04, is an assistant professor of education at the University of California, Davis. She received her doctorate in June 2004 from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Yuuko earned her BA in English Literature from the University of the Sacred Heart in Tokyo, Japan, and her MS in Linguistics from Georgetown University. Prior to attending GSE, she taught English to Japanese junior high and high school students in Tokyo, Japan.

While she was a teaching fellow for HT-500 Growing Up in a Media World, Yuuko met Chris Cerf, the executive producer for Between the Lions, a children's educational television show, and decided to focus her dissertation on the influence of educational television on bilingual children's English language development. In her dissertation, "Development of Early Literacy Skills of Bilingual Kindergarteners: An Individual Growth Modeling Approach," Yuuko examined the yearlong effects of two education television shows, Arthur and Between the Lions on the English language and literacy development of 150 Spanish-speaking kindergarteners. Professor Catherine Snow was her advisor, and Professors Terry Tivnan and Maria Carlo were on her dissertation committee. She received the Jeanne S. Chall Dissertation Research Fellowship from the International Reading Association and the Advanced Doctoral Grant from GSE to support her research. Her most recent article from her dissertation, "Narrative development in bilingual kindergarteners: Can Arthur Help?" is in press to be published in Developmental Psychology.

As an assistant professor at University of California, Davis, Yuuko is continuing her research on the language and literacy development of young immigrant children, focusing on Chinese-speaking children and Spanish-speaking children. She teaches courses in the Language, Literacy, and Culture program.