Event Type: Other

Speaker Information: Margaret Beale Spencer

College of Education assistant professors are invited to join Dr. Margaret Beale Spencer for an informal fireside chat after her lunchtime lecture (12:15 pm, 22 Education).

Margaret Beale Spencer, is the Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor Emerita in the Department of Comparative Human Development and the College and is the Marshall Field IV Professor Emerita of Urban Education at the University of Chicago.  A developmental psychologist, she is also an alumna of the Committee on Human Development at the University of Chicago. Before returning to Chicago, she was the endowed Board of Overseers Professor and Director of the Interdisciplinary Studies of Human Development (ISHD) Program and faculty member in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania (Psychology in Education Division). Additionally, she was Director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Health Achievement Neighborhood Growth and Ethnic Studies (CHANGES), and also guided as its inaugural director, the W. E. B. Du Bois Collective Research Institute. Guiding the noted efforts and continuing to frame her scholarship, Spencer's Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (P-VEST) provides an identity-focused cultural ecological perspective which frames her gender, race, culture and context acknowledging program of human development research. Recognizing the universality of human vulnerability, the theory addresses resiliency, identity, and competence formation processes for diverse humans situated both in the United States and abroad.

Having authored over 140 scholarly publications, edited several volumes, and provided Congressional Testimony in the nation’s Capital, Margaret Beale Spencer was recently elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2019). She is a recipient of the 2018 LifeTime Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association, the Division 7 (Developmental Science) 2018 Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Distinguished Contributions to Developmental Science, and the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Award for Distinguished Contributions to Cultural and Ecological Research.   Margaret Beale Spencer’s scholarship has been generated from dozens of grants awarded by Foundations and Federal funding submissions as well as featured in ABC and CNN programming broadcasted internationally.

Contact: Amy Summers
arsummer@illinois.edu

Sponsor: The College of Education Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Education (DEME) Committee