Jones Named Kargman Chair

Stephanie Jones has been named the Max and Marie Kargman Associate Professor in Human Development and Urban Education Advancement.

“Stephanie Jones is a gifted researcher whose work on the effects of poverty and violence on social and emotional development has already influenced policy and practice around bullying prevention and comprehensive school-based interventions,” Dean Kathleen McCartney said. “The importance and rigor of her research has been recognized through numerous grants and honors, perhaps most notably the Grawemeyer Award in Education in 2008. It is an honor to appoint Stephanie to the Kargman Chair.”

Jones’ research focuses on the longitudinal effects of poverty and exposure to violence on social and emotional development in early childhood and adolescence.

Currently, she is the principal investigator of an experimental evaluation of the 4Rs Program -- a universal school-based intervention designed to integrate social-emotional learning and literacy development -- funded by National Institute of Mental Health, the Institute for Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education, as well as by the William T. Grant Foundation. She is also involved as co-investigator in a number of similar evaluation studies conducted in early childhood educational settings including Chicago School Readiness Project, Foundations of Learning, Head Start CARES.

“I am thrilled and immensely gratified by the honor of being named the Marie and Max Kargman Associate Professor of Human Development and Urban Education,” said Jones. “The Kargmans’ support for faculty whose work links basic and applied research in human development to intervention, prevention, and problems of practice in education truly represents the sort of nexus scholarship that so typifies the faculty at HGSE.  I am delighted to be part of that exemplary group.”

The professorship was endowed by the late Marie and Max Kargman in 1998, graduates of FAS and GSAS, respectively. The Kargmans are longtime supporters of public education and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.