SRCD Welcomes New Secretary and Third Member-at-Large to Governing Council

Christia Spears Brown, Ph.D., is the Professor of Developmental Psychology and Associate Dean at the University of Kentucky. Her research focuses on children’s understanding of discrimination, the development of stereotypes and group identity, and the impact of discrimination and stereotypes on academic outcomes. As an intergroup researcher, her work spans gender and gender identity, ethnicity, immigration status, and economic inequality. In addition to peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, she has written three books, one for an academic audience, Discrimination in Childhood and Adolescence, and two for general audiences, Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue and Unraveling Bias, and co-edited the Wiley Handbook of Group Processes in Children and Adolescents. She is committed to “giving science away” to help improve the lives of all children and adolescents, and therefore regularly speaks with parent groups, schools, toy and media companies, and professional organizations about reducing the impact of stereotypes. 

Dr. Paul Poteat is a Professor of Applied Developmental and Educational Psychology at Boston College. He has served as Co-Editor at the American Educational Research Journal (AERJ) and Associate Editor at the Journal of Research on Adolescence (JRA) and The Counseling Psychologist (TCP). He is actively involved in the Society for Research on Adolescence and Society for Research in Child Development, where he served as Co-Chair of the Equity and Justice Committee.

Dr. Poteat conducts research on the school-based experiences of LGBTQ+ youth. His research on Gender-Sexuality Alliances (GSAs) has identified individual- and group-level mechanisms by which these school-based extracurricular groups promote empowerment and resilience among youth from diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. His work also examines bias-based harassment (e.g., based on sexual orientation or gender identity) using an ecological framework to consider individual and peer factors that contribute to such behavior or that buffer against its effects. Dr. Poteat’s research has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES).