Andrew N. Meltzoff, Ph.D.
Professor and Co-Director
Professor, Department of Psychology
Co-Director, UW Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences
Dr. Andrew N. Meltzoff is a professor of Psychology and the Co-Director of the University of Washington's Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences. A graduate of Harvard, with a PhD from Oxford, he is an internationally renowned expert on infant and child development. His discoveries about infant imitation helped transform our understanding of early cognition and social learning and sparked experiments on infant neural body maps in developmental cognitive neuroscience. His research on the development of social biases and STEM-stereotypes as early as first grade has helped build bridges between developmental and social psychology. His work on the role of cultural values in shaping children’s prosocial attitudes and behavior has further strengthened these interdisciplinary connections.
Meltzoff's research on infant and child development has implications for cognitive psychology, especially concerning memory and intentionality; for brain science, especially for multimodal coding and the development of shared neural networks for perception and action; and for educational science, particularly how children’s sense of self and motivation influence children’s choices, school achievement, and aspirations. Meltzoff's 'Like-Me' framework for social development, which holds that young children register other social beings as 'like me,' has engendered work in autism spectrum disorder, social robotics, developmental cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and most recently AI. Meltzoff has published more than 300 papers/chapters, and he has a Google Scholar h-index of 137. He is the co-author of two books about early learning and the brain: Words, Thoughts, and Theories (MIT Press, 1997) and The Scientist in the Crib (Morrow Press, 2000). He is co-editor of The Imitative Mind: Development, Evolution and Brain Bases (Cambridge University Press, 2002), a multidisciplinary volume combining neuroscience, evolutionary theory, and developmental psychology.
Dr. Meltzoff received the 2020 William James Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science (APS) for a lifetime of significant intellectual contributions to the basic science of psychology. In 2020, he received the Award for Distinguished Contributions to Developmental Psychology from the American Psychological Association (Division 7). Dr. Meltzoff was awarded the Kurt Koffka Medal (Germany) in 2016, received the Kenneth Craik Award in Psychology, Cambridge University (2005), was recognized for outstanding research by the Society for Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics (2005) and was the recipient of a MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Meltzoff is currently the President-elect of the American Psychological Association’s Division 7 (Developmental Psychology). He is a fellow/elected member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the National Academy of Education, the Norwegian Academy of Science & Letters (foreign member), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Society of Experimental Psychologists, Cognitive Science Society, APA, and APS. In 2018 he was named one of the 50 Most Infuential Psychologists in the World Today
Dr. Meltzoff has served on the board of directors of the national Zero to Three organization (WA, DC), the board of advisors for the Bay Area Discovery Museum, and the scientific advisory board of the Bezos Family Foundation. He has also served on the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine National Research Council Board on Children, Youth, and Families, the board of directors of the Foundation for Early Learning (founded by Melinda Gates and Mona Locke), the board of directors of the University Child Development School, and the national advisory committee for grants of the March of Dimes Foundation.
Meltzoff actively engages in advocating for the role of science in society. He has helped raise awareness about the importance of science and child development through appearances on PBS' Scientific American Frontiers, ABC's World News Now, Good Morning America, NBC's Today Show, and the CBC's Discovery series. He has co-authored prominent op-eds on how children's STEM stereotypes influence identity development and schooling (Washington Post, 2017; Los Angeles Times, 2017; Scientific American, 2022). As co-director of the UW Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, Meltzoff helped conceptualize and design an outreach division with a dedicated website that includes free learning modules for parents, educators, and policymakers. These materials are used by Head Start and other national and international programs, reaching 20M people.