Jessica E. Whittaker

Jessica Whittaker's research and scholarship are informed by developmental and educational psychology and explore how to support young children’s development and learning through high-quality early care and education experiences.

More specifically, she conducts research on four inter-related areas: 1) Understanding malleable classroom processes that support young children’s outcomes, 2) Designing and testing interventions that improve teacher-child interactions and instruction, 3) Understanding and supporting inter-connections between executive function and early STEM skills, and 4) Designing and implementing integrated data systems to answer important ECE questions and translate early childhood policy into practice.

Whittaker works to build strong research, practice, policy partnerships in early childhood education. Currently, she and her colleagues are partnering with the Virginia Department of Education on several early childhood initiatives.

Whittaker includes mentorship as part of her approach to applied scholarship and mentors Ph.D. students in the educational psychology—applied developmental science program. She also includes master's and undergraduate students with a strong interest in early childhood and applied research as part of her research teams.

Ph.D., University of Maryland, 2008
B.A., Duke University, 2000

Curriculum Vitae