Edward Zigler
The Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy, Yale University

Dr. Edward F. Zigler is a Sterling Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, at Yale University and the Director, Emeritus, of the Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy. Dr. Zigler received a B.S. at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and obtained his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1959. He taught at the University of Missouri at Columbia for one year before coming to Yale University in 1959. Professor Zigler was a member of the National Planning and Steering Committee of Project Head Start. In 1970, he was named by President Nixon to become the first Director of the Office of Child Development (now the Administration on Children, Youth and Families) and Chief of the U.S. Children's Bureau. While in Washington, Dr. Zigler was responsible for administering the nation's Head Start program and led efforts to conceptualize and mount other innovative programs such as Home Start, Education for Parenthood, the Child Development Associate, and the Child and Family Resource Program.

At Yale, Professor Zigler directs a distinguished laboratory engaged in a variety of basic and applied studies of child development and family functioning. His scholarly work cuts across the fields of mental retardation, psychopathology, intervention programs for economically disadvantaged children, and the effects of out-of-home care on the children of working parents. He headed a national committee of distinguished Americans charged with examining the possibility of making infant care leaves a reality in America, work that inspired the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. Professor Zigler is the author or editor of 32 books and has written over 600 scholarly articles. He is a member of the editorial boards of over 10 professional journals. He has received the Heinz Family Foundation Award in Public Policy; the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education; the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation Award, and many others.