Natasha Cabrera Ph.D.
Director, Family Involvement Laboratory
Professor
College Park , Maryland 20742
Websites:
Education:
- Ph.D. Educational Psychology, University of Denver, Colorado, 1994
- M.A Psychology and Education, University of Toronto, Canada, 1989
- B.Sc. Psychology, University of Toronto, Canada, 1985
Biography:
Natasha J. Cabrera, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, College of Education, at University of Maryland, College Park. Before joining the University of Maryland in 2002, Dr. Cabrera had several years of experience as an Executive Branch Fellow and Expert in Child Development with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Dr. Cabrera’s research, funded by NICHD, focuses on father involvement and children’s social development; ethnic and cultural variations in fathering and mothering behaviors; family processes in a social and cultural context; and the mechanisms that link early experiences to children’s school readiness. Dr. Cabrera has published in peer-reviewed journals on policy, methodology, theory and the implications of father involvement on child development. She has studied fathers for the last 15 years. In her previous position with NICHD, she developed a major initiative called Developing a Daddy Survey (DADS), which coordinated measures of father involvement across major studies in the field, provided a set of measures for others to use. She is the co-editor of the Handbook of Father Involvement: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, Second Edition (Taylor & Francis, 2013) and Latina/o Child Psychology and Mental Health: Vol 1: Early to Middle Childhood: Development and Context and Vol 2: Adolescent Development (Praeger, 2011). Dr. Cabrera is the Associate Editor of Child Development and Early Childhood Research Quarerly and the recipient of the National Council and Family Relations award for Best Research Article regarding men in families.