Pamela Morris-Perez

Pamela Morris-Perez is a Professor of Applied Psychology at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. She has garnered more than $75M to conduct research that bridges fields of developmental psychology, suicidology, education, and policy. Morris-Perez launched her career at MDRC, examining the effects on children of welfare and employment policies, with profound impact on policy debates (with ~250 news articles), developmental science, and impact methodology. Her early childhood work includes an IES-funded partnership with NYCs Department of Education to support the historic Pre-k for All and an NIH-funded trial of a parenting intervention with impact at population scale. Morris-Perez’s newest research, borne from the loss of her 17-year-old daughter Frankie, addresses adolescent suicide from a developmentally-informed, population-health perspective as part ARCADIA for Suicide Prevention. With funding from the William T. Grant Foundation and NIMH, she brings suicide prevention to the spaces that youth are to help more youth connect to care more quickly. Complementing her research, Morris-Perez oversaw 300 faculty as Vice Dean and Interim Dean at NYU Steinhardt, overseeing a 44% rise in research expenditures, a tripling of hires of faculty of color, and the transition of 7,000 students to remote instruction during COVID. A former William T. Grant scholar, Morris-Perez served as lead editor of the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness and a member of the National Academy of Science’s Board on Children, Youth, and Families. She received a B.A. from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Cornell University.