Jorge Cuartas is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and the director of the Catalyzing Action for Resilient Ecologies (CARE) lab. He holds a Ph.D. in Human Development, Learning, and Teaching from Harvard University, an Ed.M. in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University, an M.Sc. in Economics from Universidad de los Andes, and a B.Sc. in Economics from Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano.
Dr. Cuartas is a social scientist who studies how historical and current structural inequities shape early childhood development and parenting, as well as programs and policies to address such inequities in global contexts. Specifically, his research examines (1) the promotion of resilience and positive developmental trajectories across the life course, (2) the developmental consequences and prevention of violence against children, (3) the design, implementation, and evaluation of parenting and early childhood programs and policies, and (4) the intersections between climate change and the science of human development.
His research is informed by interdisciplinary theory and employs advanced quantitative methods, including causal inference, psychometrics, and meta-analytic approaches. His work has been published in The Lancet, The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, Child Development, Developmental Science, Child Development Perspectives, Developmental Psychology, and Child Abuse & Neglect, among others.
He has received numerous awards and fellowships for his work, including the American Psychological Association (APA) Developmental Psychology’s Early Career Outstanding Paper Award, the National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship, the Society for Research in Child Development's Patrice L. Engle Dissertation Grant for Global Early Child Development, the Early Childhood Development Action Network's (ECDAN) Knowledge Fellowship, and the Science and Innovation Fellowship from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.
Before joining NYU, Dr. Cuartas served as a Consultant for UNICEF, the World Bank, the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB), Parenting for Lifelong Health, and the Colombian Government. He is also a researcher at the Centro de Estudios sobre Seguridad y Drogas (CESED) at Universidad de los Andes.
Selected Publications
- Cuartas, J., McCoy, D., Torres, I., Burghardt, L., Shonkoff, J. & Yoshikawa, H. (2024). The Developmental Consequences of Early Exposure to Climate Change-Related Risks. Child Development Perspectives. http://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12503
- Cuartas, J., Beccassino, L., Henningham, H., Pineda, O., Rodriguez, M. (2024). Prevention of Violence Against Children: A Qualitative Exploration of Colombian Policymakers', Programme Facilitators' and Caregivers' Perceptions. Child: Care, Health and Development, 50(5): e13325. https://doi.org/10.1111/cch.13325
- Cuartas, J., Salazar, A., Backhaus, S., Little, M., McCoy, D., Yoshikawa, H., Bass, M., Metheny, N., Knaul, F. (in press) Strategies to prevent violence against children in the home: A systematic review of reviews. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380241247018
- Cuartas, J., Bhatia, A., Carter, D., Cluver, L., Coll, C., Draper, C., Donger, E., Gardner, F., Grueso, H., Herbert, B., Lachman, J., Maalla M’jid, N., Seidel, F. & Kelly, O. (2023). The climate crisis and violence against children. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, https://doi.org/10.1016/S2352-4642(23)00137-2
- Cuartas, J., McCoy, D., Sánchez, J., Behrman, J., Cappa, C., Donati, G., Heymann, J., Lu, C., Raikes, A., Rao, N., Richter, L., Stein, A., & Yoshikawa, H. (2023) Family play, reading, and other stimulation and early childhood development in five low-and-middle-income countries. Developmental Science, e13404. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13404
- Cuartas, J., Henningham, H., Cepeda, A., Rey-Guerra, C., & ICBF Early Childhood Team (2022). The Apapacho Violence Prevention Parenting Program: Conceptual Foundations and Pathways to Scale. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(14), 8582. doi:10.3390/ijerph19148582
- Cuartas, J. (2022). The effect of spanking on early social-emotional skills. Child Development, 93(1), 180-193. doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13646
- Draper, C. E., Barnett, L. M., Cook, C. J., Cuartas, J., Howard, S. J., McCoy, D. C., Merkley, R., Molano, A., Maldonado-Carreño, C., Obradović, J., Scerif, G., Valentini, N. C., Venetsanou, F., & Yousafzai, A. K. (2022) Publishing child development research from around the world: An unfair playing field resulting in most of the world's child population under-represented in research. Infant and Child Development, e2375. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2375
- McCoy, D. C., Seiden, J., Cuartas, J., Pisani, L., & Waldman, M. (2022). Estimates of a multidimensional index of nurturing care in the next 1000 days of life for children in low-income and middle-income countries: a modelling study. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, 6(5), 324-334. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2352-4642(22)00076-1
- Cuartas, J. (2022) The effect of maternal education on parenting and early childhood development: An instrumental variables approach. Journal of Family Psychology, 36(2), 280–290. doi.org/10.1037/fam0000886
- Cuartas, J., Weissman, D., Sheridan, M., Lengua, L. & McLaughlin, K. (2021). Corporal punishment and elevated neural response to threat in children. Child Development, 92(3), 821-832. doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13565
- Cuartas, J. & McCoy, D. (2021). Causal mediation in developmental science: a primer. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 45(3), 269-274. doi.org/10.1177/0165025420981640
- Cuartas, J. & Leventhal, T (2020). Exposure to community violence and children’s mental health: A quasi-experimental examination. Social Science and Medicine, 246, 112740-112740. doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112740