Center for the Developing Adolescent Announces New Advisory Board Members

Downloadable PDF: Center for the Developing Adolescent Announces New Advisory Board Members

LOS ANGELES—The Center for the Developing Adolescent (CDA) today formally announced the new members of its Advisory Board. Margarita Alegría, PhD, Karen Pittman, MA, and Zoë Stemm-Calderon, Ed.L.D., will work with board chair Ron Dahl, MD, and existing board member Jody Rosentswieg, JD, to guide strategy for the CDA. Each of the new board members brings extensive leadership experience in promoting policies and programs that equitably serve adolescents.

The new board will be chaired by Dr. Dahl, founding director of the CDA and director of the Institute of Human Development and the Adolescent Research Collaborative at UC Berkeley.

“The expertise of this board will support the CDA in our work as a trusted source for the developmental science of adolescence,” said Dr. Dahl. “I look forward to working with this board to help the CDA grow in its work to equitably promote positive trajectories for all adolescents.”

“I’m excited to welcome the new Advisory Board members,” said Adriana Galván, co-executive director for the CDA. “We are fortunate to have the benefit of their expertise as we build the Center’s capacity to offer research and information that supports the positive development of young people.”

New Advisory Board Members

• Dr. Maragita Alegría is the chief of the Disparities Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Mongan Institute, the Harry G. Lehnert, Jr. and Lucille F. Cyr Lehnert Endowed MGH Research Institute Chair, and a professor in the Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She has published widely on topics such as improvement of health care services delivery for diverse racial and ethnic populations, conceptual and methodological issues with multicultural populations, and ways to bring the community’s perspective into the design and implementation of health services.
  
  Her research has been recognized by the Simon Bolivar Award by the American Psychiatry Association, the Carl Taube Award by the American Public Health Association, and the Health Disparities Innovation Award from the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities. In October 2011, she was elected as a member of the National Academy of Medicine. Most recently, she received the 2020 Rema Lapouse Award for Achievement in Epidemiology, Mental Health, and Applied Public Health Statistics by the American Public Health Association. Dr. Alegría obtained her PhD in psychology from Temple University.
  
  
• Karen Pittman is the co-founder, president, and CEO of the Forum for Youth Investment, a national nonprofit, nonpartisan “action tank” that combines thought leadership on youth development, youth policy, cross-system/cross-sector partnerships, and developmental youth practice with on-the-ground training, technical assistance, and supports. Karen is currently spending much of her days driving forward The Readiness Projects, a joint effort between the Forum, The National Urban League, and The American Institutes for Research, which aims to dramatically change the odds for youth through a commitment to upend inequities, embrace science-informed strategies, and accelerate progress.
  
  A sociologist and recognized leader in youth development, Karen was previously vice president at the Academy for Educational Development and director of the President’s Crime Prevention Council under the Clinton administration. She also worked with Gen. Colin Powell to create America’s Promise. Karen has been honored with the National Commission for African American Education Augustus F. Hawkins Service Award (2002), the American Youth Policy Forum Decade of Service Award for Sustained Visionary Leadership in Advancing Youth Policy (2003), the Healthy Teen Network Spirit of Service Award (2007), The NonProfit Times’ Power & Influence Top 50 (2009), and was named one of the 25 most influential leaders in afterschool by the National Afterschool Association. She also received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Partners for Livable Communities.
  
  
• Zoë Stemm-Calderon joined the Raikes Foundation in 2015 to lead its education strategy. Before joining the foundation, Zoë served as a resident at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation while completing her doctorate in education leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Previously, Zoë was assistant superintendent of professional support and development at Houston Independent School District (ISD). Prior to her work in Houston ISD, Zoë was a senior leader at Teach for America, where she spent her 10-year tenure focused on advancing the organization’s approach to teacher, coach, and manager development. Zoë began her career as an elementary school teacher in Houston.

The appointment of the new Advisory Board follows a year of major rebuilding for the CDA. In February, the organization convened the first meeting of the National Scientific Council on Adolescence, and in August, UCLA professors Adriana Galván and Andrew Fuligni became co-executive directors.

These changes enable CDA to expand its role as a trusted, unbiased source of accessible information about research on adolescent development in order to better support those working to create and redesign policies, programs, and larger social systems that help all adolescents thrive.

For more information on any of our new leaders, the Center, or adolescent development, visit developingadolescent.org.