Melanie Killen


Melanie Killen is a developmental psychologist and Professor of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, and Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland, as well as Honorary Professor of Psychology at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK She has conducted extensive research on social and moral development, social exclusion and the origins of prejudice, moral reasoning and group dynamics, peer relationships, social-cognitive development, and children's understanding of social inequalities and social mobility. She is supported by funding from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the National Science Foundation for her research. In 2008, she was awarded Distinguished Scholar-Teacher by the Provost's office at the University of Maryland. She is the Director of the Social and Moral Development Lab at the University of Maryland.

Education

Killen obtained her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was a NIMH Predoctoral trainee, and her B.A. in Psychology from Clark University, where she was awarded a New England Psychological Association undergraduate Honorary Fellow.

Research

Killen has developed with Adam Rutland a theoretical framework, referred to as the Social Reasoning Developmental model which identifies three factors, morality, group identity, and psychological assessments that bear on how individuals evaluate intergroup contexts. Morality includes fairness, equality, and rights; group identity includes group dynamics, in-group preferences and outgroup distrust, group advantaged and disadvantaged status, and group functioning; psychological assessments include attributions of intentions and mental state knowledge.
Killen has served as an expert witness in a federal school desegregation case and helped prepare two Supreme Court briefs regarding the impact of school desegregation on children's social development. She has consulted for the U.S. Government in the area of peer conflict resolution as well as for Sesame Workshop and Teaching Tolerance. She has also served as a consultant for a federal initiative on interventions designed to reduce prejudice and to promote inclusion in U.S. elementary schools.
In 2011-2012, Killen and her research team were commissioned by Anderson Cooper at CNN AC360 to conduct a study on children's racial biases which aired in April, 2012, and won an Emmy Award for Outstanding News and Analysis, October 1, 2013. Killen serves on the expert advisory panel for the new National Children's Museum in Washington, D.C., and her research has been profiled in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Examiner, The American Scientist, The Chronicle of Higher Education, American School Board Journal, Teaching Tolerance Magazine, ABCNews.com, Newsweek.com, Parenting, Parent-Wise Magazine, Redbook, Baby Journal, as well as other print and media outlets.

Honors

Her publications include: