Ross A. Thompson

Ross A. Thompson is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of California, Davis, where he directed the Social and Emotional Development Lab. Thompson is an internationally-recognized authority on the psychological development of young children, parent-child relationships, and the applications of developmental science to public policy problems such as early childhood mental health, child poverty, and early education. His work integrates understanding of the developing brain with early experiences in both typical and at-risk children, and he consults extensively to legislative committees, public agencies, and private foundations. He has published five books, several best-selling textbooks, and over 300 papers related to his work. Thompson is Past President of the Board of Directors of Zero to Three, a national nonprofit devoted to the healthy development of young children and their families. He served on the Executive Committee of the Center for Poverty Research at the University of California, serves on the boards of the Buffett Early Childhood Institute and the Stein Early Childhood Development Fund, and was a founding member of the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. He received the Boyd E. McCandless Young Scientist Award for Early Distinguished Achievement from the American Psychological Association, the Ann L. Brown Award for Excellence in Developmental Research in 2007, the University of California, Davis Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Award in 2011 and the Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2019, the Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society from the American Psychological Association in 2018, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from Zero to Three in 2023.