Craig Ramey
In 1971, Craig Ramey launched a groundbreaking, multidisciplinary Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) to test the efficacy of five years of high-quality early care and education for children to overcome the educational and health challenges long-associated with growing up in multi-risk and low-resource environments. Five decades later, the ongoing鈥�, with its many and diverse replications in other places,鈥痗ontinues to demonstrate the positive power of these interventions.
鈥淭here is nothing more important than bringing forth the full human potential of each and every child by applying all of our scientific knowledge."
How can implementation science help health practitioners and policymakers?鈥�
Craig Ramey鈥檚 program of research centers on the role of experience 鈥� across the human lifespan - in the development of competence and robust health. His approach relies largely on experimental interventions in education, psychology, and pediatrics that provide rigorous tests of plausible developmental mechanisms of stability and change within dynamic, multilayered ecologies.
Dr. Ramey was educated as a Lifespan Developmental Psychologist at West Virginia University (Ph.D. in 1969) followed by a Post-doctoral Fellowship at the University of California 鈥� Berkeley. He has authored more than 300 publications, including 6 books, and has received numerous national and international awards, including being inducted into National Institute of Child Health& Development Hall of Fame.
Ramey鈥檚 research findings are highly relevant to many national and international policy issues. Accordingly, he has extended his research into topics that address 鈥済oing-to-scale鈥� and rapid application of scientific findings that can prevent disabilities, promote children鈥檚 education and health outcomes, and improve family and community well-being. This field of 鈥渋mplementation science鈥� represents a new frontier for the neurosciences and educating educational and health practitioners and policymakers. As Ramey says, the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute affords him a unique opportunity to pursue his research interests in collaboration with scientists, scholars, and practitioners who themselves are challenging old paradigms and forging a new frontier in human developmental science.
