Elisheva Gross, PhD consults with the Foundation on its early child programming, including The CuddleBright® Experience. She directs the UCLA Minor in Applied Developmental Psychology, an undergraduate program dedicated to optimizing teaching, learning, development and care among infants and young children and the adults who support them.
Dr. Gross completed her BA in American Studies at Yale in 1995 and her doctorate in Developmental and Social Psychology at UCLA in 2006. She has conducted research on the links between adolescent development and the social worlds they experience, from rapidly evolving digital environments to diverse junior high and high school settings and the broader cultural context. Since 1991, she has also worked with a variety of non-profit community organizations and schools to use the arts, digital media, and psychological research as tools to foster socio-emotional, academic and creative development and equity from infancy through adolescence.
Born and raised in Princeton, New Jersey, Dr. Gross is also a visual artist as well as a grateful (and constantly humbled) parent of two teenage daughters.