Andrew Meltzoff

Dr. Andrew N. Meltzoff holds the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Endowed Chair in Psychology and is 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 preschoolers’ social biases and children’s STEM-gender stereotypes has helped build bridges between developmental and social psychology. His recent work on infant altruism continues to expand these interdisciplinary connections.

Dr. Meltzoff serves on the scientific advisory board of the Bezos Family Foundation, the board of directors of the national Zero to Three organization (WA, DC), and the board of advisors for the Bay Area Discovery Museum. 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. Dr. Meltzoff has appeared on PBS’ Scientific American Frontiers, ABC’s World News Now, NBC’s Today Show, and the CBC’s Discovery series. He has co-authored prominent op-ed pieces on how children’s STEM stereotypes influence identity development and schooling (Washington Post, 2017; Los Angeles Times, 2017; Scientific American, 2022). Meltzoff is married to Dr. Patricia K. Kuhl, and they have one daughter.