TEAM

Dana Charles McCoy is faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). Her work focuses on understanding the ways that poverty-related risk factors in children’s home, school, and neighborhood environments affect the development of their cognitive and socioemotional skills in early childhood. She is also interested in the development, refinement, and evaluation of early intervention programs designed to promote positive development and resilience in young children, particularly in terms of their self-regulation and executive function. McCoy’s research is centered in both domestic and international contexts, including Brazil, Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia. She has a particular interest in interdisciplinary theory, causal methodology, and ecologically valid measurement. Before joining the HGSE faculty, McCoy served as an NICHD National Research Service Award post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard Center on the Developing Child. She graduated with an A.B. in Psychological and Brain Sciences from Dartmouth College and received her Ph.D. in Applied Psychology with a concentration in Quantitative Analysis from New York University. McCoy’s work has been published in journals such as Developmental Psychology, Child Development, Pediatrics, and The Lancet. She has presented her work to audiences around the world, including the WHO, UNICEF, and the World Bank.

Günther Fink is associate professor at the Swiss TPH in Basel as well as adjunct professor in the department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Fink’s work focuses on developing and evaluating new and innovative approaches to improving child health and child development. He has worked on evaluations of national and community-based health insurance initiatives in Ghana and Burkina Faso, community-based health workers programs in Nigeria, and large-scale private and public sector initiatives to reduce the burden of malaria in Angola, Namibia, Uganda and Zambia. He is currently the PI of the Zambia Early Childhood Development Project as well as the Co-PI of the São Paulo Western Region Cohort Project, two longitudinal studies exploring the long-term effects of early life adversity. He is currently also working on cluster-randomized trials aiming at improving nutritional and early learning outcomes among children under 5 in Brazil. South Africa and Zambia, an mHealth program designed to increase vaccination coverage in Mozambique, and Results-Based Financing Projects implemented by the World Bank in Congo DRC, Congo Republic and The Gambia.

Marcus Waldman earned his doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in May 2020 and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the College of Public Health, University of Nebraska Medical Center. His research interests involve the development and application of statistical methods to answer research questions in early childhood education and psychology. His methodological expertise is in latent variable modeling, missing data analysis, and psychometrics. Marcus has significant experience in providing statistical consulting for subject matter experts and policymaking organizations such as the World Health Organization and the World Bank.

Jonathan Seiden is a doctoral student in Education Policy and Program Evaluation working with Dana McCoy and Luke Miratrix. His research interests include the quantitative measurement of early childhood development and how assessments are used to inform policy and interventions that help children reach their developmental potential. Prior to beginning his studies, Jonathan worked at Save the Children US as a Senior Specialist for Education Research where he served as the principal investigator on numerous impact evaluations of early childhood and basic education interventions. He received his B.A. in International Relations from the College of William & Mary, and his M.Ed. in International Education Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. 

Kenji is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). His work focuses on early childhood development (ECD) measurement and intervention issues from an international perspective. He is particularly interested in children's approaches to learning, mechanisms of lasting impact or early fade-out of early intervention effects, and effect heterogeneities. Before joining HGSE, he worked for UNICEF Nepal, where he assisted the Government of Nepal's Education Review Office in validating national and international ECD assessment tools and evaluated ECD programs. He received a B.A. in International Development from the University of Tsukuba (Japan) and an M.A. in International Educational Development from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Mikayla My Do is a Ph.D. student at Harvard Graduate School of Education, specializing in the field of adolescent development. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Human Development from the University of California San Diego and a Master of Science in Education (M.S.Ed) in Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Development from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Mikayla's research is centered around the positive development of adolescents in diverse cultural contexts. Her work is particularly focused on facilitating identity development, purpose development, and psychological well-being among adolescents as they navigate the transition from high school to college and the workforce. 

Heather Do is a master's student in the Human Development and Education program at HGSE. She serves as a research assistant at the Settings for Early Education and Development Lab (SEED Lab) and her work at the lab primarily focuses on the development of the CREDI. Her research interests focus on the effects of home, school, and neighborhood environments on the development of children from low-income families and racial/ethnic minority groups. Prior to HGSE, Heather was a research assistant at the Universal Pre-K Lab at New York University, as well as the Child Development Lab at Oberlin College focusing on supporting healthy development of children of minority groups. She graduated from Oberlin College in May 2021 with a BA in Psychology and a concentration in Education Studies.

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