Our speakers

Mary Dozier

Professor, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware

Mary Dozier is Amy E. du Pont Chair of Child Development and Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Delaware. She obtained her Ph.D. from Duke University in 1983. Over the last 20 years, she has studied the development of young children in foster care and young children living with neglecting birth parents, examining challenges in attachment and regulatory capabilities. Along with her graduate students and research team, she developed an intervention, Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up, that targets specific issues that have been identified as problematic for young children who have experienced adversity. This intervention has been shown to enhance children’s ability to form secure attachments, and to regulate physiology and behavior normatively, among other things. Dr. Dozier is currently conducting randomized clinical trials examining the effectiveness of this intervention with high-risk birth children, foster children, and internationally adopted children.