Giving matters: Nancy M. and John E. Lindahl Professorship

Forward-looking mentorship and research

Philip Zelazo holds the Nancy M. and John E. Lindahl Professorship in the Institute of Child Development. This gives him the flexibility to be responsive to new opportunities for research and innovation, he says, as it is outside of the often-ponderous cycle of federal funding where there is often a long gap between applying for and receiving funds. “I have been able to devote time and energy to forward-looking mentorship and timely—and sometimes serendipitous—research initiatives that promise substantial societal impact,” he says.

As examples, Zelazo can point to the support he provided to PhD student Isabelle Morris’s research on social information processing in individuals with autism and PhD student Colin Drexler’s work on the role of self-awareness in helping children deploy their executive function (EF) skills effectively, as well as the civic science research he has been conducting with his colleague, Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute, and author of the best-selling book, Mind in the Making. 

“The extra flexibility and independence provided by the professorship has also allowed me to take a long view, and to reflect more broadly on research in the field,” Zelazo says.

Zelazo is also excited about another project in the works: An intellectual hub of innovation called the Civic Science Center: Improving Executive Function, Learning and Mental Health in Children and Youth. “This center will coordinate research, policy, and practice for supporting the development of children’s executive function skills, as well as the life skills that depend on them,” he says. “Civic science engages citizens in collective scientific collaboration to address complex, pressing, real-world problems, which is needed to create scalable, sustainable supports for children’s mental health that are meaningfully embedded in the communities in which children live.”

Zelazo gives a lot of credit to his professorship in allowing him the opportunity to leverage his mentorship and research roles for the betterment of child development.

“I am deeply grateful for Nancy and John Lindahl’s generous support—to me, to the University, and more broadly, to Minnesota and beyond,” he says. “I believe we share a sincere desire to ‘level the playing field,’ so that all children have an opportunity to succeed in school and in life.”

Photo by Jairus Davis