Deborah Lowe Vandell

Deborah Lowe Vandell is a professor of education and psychology and the founding dean of the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine. The author of more than 150 articles and three books, she has focused much of her research on the effects of afterschool and summer programs, extracurricular activities, and unsupervised time on academic and social outcomes on young people from kindergarten through the end of high school. Vandell earned her master's degree in education at Harvard University and received a PhD in psychology from Boston University. She began her career as a kindergarten and second grade teacher. She is a member of the Governing Council for the Society for Research in Child Development and is Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychological Society.