Our Vision
A world where all early education leaders have the knowledge and strategies they need to provide children and their colleagues with strong, supportive learning environments.
Our Values
Aspiration
We strive to transform early education, acting with high expectations, an open mind, and a deep belief in all children’s potential—and the potential of the adults dedicated to their learning.
Equity
We focus on settings that serve the most vulnerable, aiming to buffer stress and reduce adversity.
Scientific Integrity
We hold ourselves to high scientific standards. We craft relevant questions, employ rigorous methodologies, and produce findings that advance policy and practice. Our tools for the field are grounded in evidence.
Connectivity
We are always striving to make connections. Our research informs our work with leaders; insights from the field enhance our research; and the networks we build enable collective action.
Communication
We generate, broker, and exchange information for impact. We are dedicated to rapid-cycle dissemination that provides accessible, progressive, and practical tools and information.
Directors
Stephanie Jones
Faculty Director
Nonie Lesaux
Faculty Director
Stephanie Jones is a Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research, anchored in prevention science, examines the long-term effects of poverty and exposure to violence on children’s social and emotional development, as well as the impact of school-based interventions promoting children’s social-emotional skills, pro-social behavior, and academic skills. She has studied evaluation research addressing the impact of preschool and elementary focused social-emotional learning interventions on behavioral and academic outcomes and classroom practices, as well as the development, implementation, and testing of new curricula.
Jones was awarded the Grawemeyer Award in Education for her work with Edward Zigler and Walter Gilliam on A Vision for Universal Preschool Education; she was also awarded the Joseph E. Zins Early-Career Distinguished Contribution Award for Action Research in Social and Emotional Learning by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL).
Jones serves on numerous national advisory boards and expert consultant groups related to social-emotional development and child and family anti-poverty policies, including the boards of Parents as Teachers and Engaging Schools. Jones was previously the Marie and Max Kargman Associate Professor in Human Development and Urban Education Advancement at HGSE.
Nonie Lesaux is the Juliana W. and William Foss Thompson Professor of Education and Society at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research focuses on promoting the language and literacy skills of children from diverse linguistic, cultural, and economic backgrounds. Results of her program of research appear in numerous scholarly publications, and their practical applications are featured in three books. She served on the U.S. Department of Education’s Reading First Advisory Committee, and the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council’s Committee on the Science of Children Birth to Age 8.
Lesaux also leads state-level policy work to improve third grade reading outcomes in Massachusetts. She authored a state-level literacy report that formed the basis for a Third Grade Reading Proficiency bill passed in the Massachusetts Legislature. The legislation established an Early Literacy Expert Panel, which Lesaux co-chairs, charged with developing new policies and initiatives in a number of domains that influence children’s early literacy development. Lesaux is the former chair of the Massachusetts Board of Early Education and Care.
Our Team
Danila Crespin Zidovsky
Senior Policy and Leadership Specialist
Danila Crespin is Senior Policy and Leadership Specialist at the Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative. Prior to joining Zaentz, Danila served as Special Assistant to New Mexico’s Secretary of Education. She has served as senior staff for multiple political campaigns, both at the national and at the local level. She was an original member of U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich’s staff, as well as senior staff during his successful reelection campaign, when only a handful of Democratic representatives won their races across the country.
Emily Wiklund Hayhurst
Assistant Director, Learning Design and Communications
Emily Wiklund Hayhurst is the Assistant Director of Learning Design and Communications at the Zaentz Early Education Initiative, where she develops professional learning programs, multimedia resources, and action-oriented tools for early education leaders, practitioners, and policymakers. Emily is a graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she earned a master’s degree in human development and psychology while participating in the Zaentz Fellows Program. Before coming to Harvard, she served as an early childhood educator in Washington, D.C.
Jon Wallace
Senior Writer and Editor
Jon works on writing projects across the Initiative and helps other Zaentz writers improve their own writing. Before joining Zaentz, Jon was managing editor of the Princeton/Brookings journal The Future of Children. He holds a master's degree in Russian and Soviet History from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Charlotte Petty
Research Associate, Pre-K Initiatives and Data Use
Charlotte works within the Initiative's research team to support the Early Learning Study at Harvard and leads a community-partnered research project that focuses on the early education workforce in the City of Cambridge; also facilitates professional programming within the initiative, including leading the Zaentz Innovation Challenge. After working for nearly a decade as an early educator and teacher-leader primarily with toddlers in Montessori settings, Charlotte earned her Ed.M. in Human Development and Education with a concentration in Early Childhood from HGSE in 2022, during which time she was a Zaentz Fellow.
Robin Kane
Assistant Director, Professional Programs and Partnerships
Robin draws on her early childhood expertise to develop learning objectives and content for the Professional Learning Academy. A former early childhood educator and program director, Robin founded a child development center, where she taught young children and mentored educators for over 23 years. Robin designs and implements innovative professional development program and materials for early educators and leaders, including teams engaging in the Certificate in Early Education Leadership.
Kimberly McMahon
Online Learning and Program Administrative Coordinator
Kim manages and coordinates the Certificate in Early Education Leadership and Zaentz Fellow programs and provides overall administrative support for the Initiative. Kim is a Graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she earned a master’s degree in human development and psychology and graduate of Lesley University, where she earned a master’s degree in elementary education. Before coming to Harvard, Kim was an elementary educator in Boston and Chicago and a life coach in the Boston area.
Armida Lizarraga
Director, Quality Measurement Initiative
Armida works as the Director of the Quality Measurement Initiative, leading the development of easy-to-implement tools to measure setting-level quality for early education and care systems. Her primary field of expertise is early childhood and language and literacy. Before joining the Zaentz Initiative team, Armida was the Executive Director of a philanthropic organization in Peru, focused on preschool teacher coaching, which she helped launch, develop, and scale-up.
Alan Mozaffari
Visiting Fellow
Alan is a graduate of Harvard's Graduate School of Education and School of Public Health, where he received his Master's in Education in Human Development and Psychology and Master of Public Heath in Health and Social Behavior, respectively. Before his graduate studies, Alan was involved in community-based, system science research with youth across St. Louis, Boston, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Alan is currently a PhD Student in Health Policy, Population Health Sciences, UC Berkeley.
Jackie Ramos-Draper
Research and Policy Analyst
Jackie conducts complex and advanced quantitative programming, analysis, and visualization on large-scale and longitudinal data, and communicates results to both public and academic audiences, in addition to supporting the development of the Zaentz Navigator. Jackie has a master's degree in Education Policy from Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she was a Zaentz Early Education Fellow.
Kate Kane
Lead Facilitator, Certificate in Early Education Leadership
Kate is an early education consultant and Lead Facilitator of the Zaentz Early Education Initiative's Certificate in Early Education Leadership (CEEL) program. She holds a Master's degree in Early Childhood Education. At Zaentz, Kate supports facilitators and participants of the CEEL program as they engage with content to increase competencies and skills in early education leadership.
Early Learning Study at Harvard (ELS@H)
PhD Students
Caitlin Dermody, Lily Fritz, Ron Grady, and Madelyn Gardner
Zaentz Professors
Meredith Rowe
Professor
Junlei Li is the Saul Zaentz senior lecturer in early childhood education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His research and practice focuses on understanding and supporting the work of helpers–those who serve children and families on the frontlines of education and social services. Li studied and learned from a wide range of developmental settings with low resources but high-quality practices, including orphanages, childcare, classrooms, and community youth programs. He developed the “Simple Interactions” approach to help identify what ordinary people do extraordinarily well with children in everyday moments and made that the basis for promoting positive system change. Li frequently delivers keynote presentations and workshops for national, state, and international conferences focused on improving practices, programs, and policies for children, families, and professionals, with a particular emphasis on early childhood development. He teaches about improving human interactions and supporting adult helpers at HGSE and the Zaentz Professional Learning Academy. Li’s work is significantly influenced and inspired by the pioneering work of Fred Rogers (creator of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood). He previously served as the Co-Director and Rita M. McGinley Professor for Early Learning and Children’s Media at the Fred Rogers Center at Saint Vincent College.
Meredith Rowe is the Saul Zaentz Professor of Early Learning and Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). She leads a research program on understanding the role of parent and family factors in children’s early language and literacy development. She is particularly interested in uncovering how variations in children’s early communicative environments contribute to language development and in applying this knowledge to develop interventions for low-income families. Rowe received her doctoral degree in Human Development and Psychology from HGSE in 2003 and pursued postdoctoral fellowships in the Psychology and Sociology departments at the University of Chicago for several years. In 2009, she was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology at the University of Maryland, where she was promoted to Associate Professor in 2014 before joining the faculty at Harvard. Her work is published widely in top journals in education and psychology, including Science, Child Development, Developmental Science, and Developmental Psychology.