News Features & Releases

June 20, 2001

Paul L. Harris to Join Faculty at Harvard Graduate School of Education

Paul L. Harris, an expert on early childhood development, will join the faculty of the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) as a full professor on July 1, 2001.

Harris's main research interest is in the early development of imagination and emotion. In his seminal work, Children and Emotion: The Development of Psychological Understanding, Harris explores when and how children develop a concept of mental life, and how this relates to their understanding of the behavior, intentions, and emotions of other people. He uses a cross-cultural framework that includes perspectives from psychology, anthropology and sociology. His more recent research on the imagination appears in his latest book, The Work of the Imagination (Blackwell, 2000).

"Paul Harris' arrival is an exciting moment for HGSE," says Jerome T. Murphy, Dean and Harold Howe II Professor of Education. "His ongoing research on understanding and development in young children will help the School continue to build on its strengths in early childhood education."

Harris is author of Children and Emotion: The Development of Psychological Understanding (1989) and editor of Perspectives on the Child's Theory of Mind (1991, with G.E. Butterworth, A.M. Leslie, and H.M. Wellman), Children's Understanding of Emotions (1989, with C. Saarni), and Developing Theories of Mind (1988, with J.W. Astington and D.R. Olson), and The Work of the Imagination (2000). He is also co-editor of Imagining the Impossible: Magical, Scientific, and Religious Thinking in Children (2000, with K. S. Rosengren and C. N. Johnson, editors).

Harris received his D. Phil. in Psychology from Oxford University. Most recently, he served as a Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Oxford, and was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy.

For More Information

Contact Christine Sanni at 617-496-5873