John Fantuzzo

University of Pennsylvania

Albert M. Greenfield Emeritus Professor of Human Relations

John Fantuzzo is the Albert M. Greenfield Emeritus Professor of Human Relations and Education Policy Program at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the Co-Founder of the Penn Early Childhood and Family Research Center with Dr. Vivian Gadsen and Co-Founder with Dr. Dennis Culhane of the Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy National Network at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a leader in school-based, early childhood education research and the use of Integrated Data Systems (IDS) in education to enhance the well-being of children from low-income households living in segregated disadvantaged in large urban center. His work has included building and using scientific validated capacities at the macro- and micro-systems levels for various populations of vulnerable children. At the macro-level, he co-developed with Dr. Culhane the Kids Integrated Data System (KIDS) for Philadelphia, which was one of the first fully integrated data systems providing evidence to inform policies and public services. Based on the success of KIDS, he was invited along with Dennis Culhane to develop and co-direct Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy (AISP), a national network of Integrated Data Systems serving state and local governments with development funding from the MacArthur Foundation. At present the network and its learning communities represents over 50% of the U.S. population. Through the AISP Network, he has been promoting the use of IDS nationally through (1) identifying best practices, (2) assisting in the development of local and state IDSs, and (3) using AISP Network sites to conduct large multi-site research. This model for integrating data across Education, Health, and Human Service agencies in Philadelphia and nationally has been used to study how various publicly monitored risks affect the educational well-being of subgroups of vulnerable children and youth. At the micro-level, Fantuzzo has developed and tested school-based interventions using large-scale RCT designs. He was the Principal Investigator, along with Drs. Vivian Gadsden and Paul McDermott, for the development and validation of the Evidence based Program for Integrated Curricula (EPIC), a comprehensive school-readiness program for Head Start, which was successfully tested with a randomized control trial across the School District of Philadelphia (SDP). He is also the developer or co-developer of several published assessment tools validated for young children and families from low-income households that are used nationally and internationally. He is the recipient of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Involvement award and the third recipient of National Head Start Research Mentor award. Dr. Fantuzzo is also a Co-Founder of the Cross University Collaborative Mentoring Conference, an annual conference representing a university collaboration dedicated to supporting graduate students committed to conducting research to enhance the well-being of children and families from underserved communities.