Building Early Social and Emotional Relationships with Infants and Toddlers Integrating Research and Practice

Amanda Sheffield Morris, Ph.D., is the George Kaiser Family Foundation chair in Child Development and a Regents Professor at Oklahoma State University. She is a developmental scientist and a Cooperative Extension Child Development Specialist with research interests in parenting, socio-emotional development, and infant and early childhood mental health. Her research focuses on the role of emotion regulation in children and adolescents' adjustment and the ways in which children learn successful regulation skills. Another focus of her work is child and family resilience, and she is particularly interested in how early experiences shape later development with an emphasis on the parent-child relationship. Dr. Morris has published more than 60 articles and book chapters on child development, and her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Administration for Children and Families, and the George Kaiser Family Foundation. She is endorsed as a Level IV ResearchMentor by the Oklahoma Association for Infant Mental Health.

Amy C. Williamson, Ph.D., is the Ramona Ware Emmons Paul Professor in Early Childhood in the Department of Human Development and Family Science at Oklahoma State University. She earned her doctorate in Human Development and Family Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her research interests include infant social and emotional development, early childhood mental health, teacher-child relationships, and early childhood teacher well-being and professional development.. She regularly publishes and presents on these and related topics. The overall focus of her work is to improve outcomes for children and families by improving the relationships between very young children and the significant caregivers in their lives. Prior to academia, she worked in a variety of settings in the field of early care and education, including time as an early childhood center director, kindergarten teacher, and early care and education teacher.