Mary Dozier
Mary Dozier
Unidel Amy Elizabeth du Pont Chair in Child Development
Office location
University of Delaware, 105 The Green, Room 215, Wolf Hall, Newark, DE 19716
Lab
302-831-6328 / 850 Library Ave.
Education
- Ph.D. – Duke University, Durham, NC
- B.A. – Duke University, Durham, NC
Biography
Mary Dozier is Unidel Amy E. duPont Chair and Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Delaware in the United States. She has studied the development of young children in foster care and young children living with neglecting birth parents, examining challenges in attachment and regulatory capabilities. Along with her graduate students and research team, she developed an intervention, Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC), for parents of vulnerable infants. Through randomized clinical trials, ABC has been demonstrated to be effective in enhancing parental sensitivity and children’s behavioral and biological functioning. In 2016 she was named the Francis Alison Professor, the university’s highest faculty honor. In 2018 she received the International Society for Infancy Studies Translational Research Award and was the 2019 recipient of the American Psychological Association Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution in Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society.
Courses Regularly Taught
Advanced Research Methods
Research Methods
Publications
Valadez, E. A., Tottenham, N., Korom, M., Tabachnick, A. R., Pine, D. S., & Dozier, M. (2024). A randomized controlled trial of a parenting intervention during infancy alters amygdala-prefrontal circuitry in middle childhood. Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 63(1), 29-38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2023.06.015
Korom, M., Goldstein, A., Tabachnick, A. R., Palmwood, E. N., Simons, R. F., & Dozier, M. (2021). Early parenting intervention accelerates inhibitory control development among CPS-involved children in middle childhood: A randomized clinical trial. Developmental Science, e13054. doi.org/10.1111/desc.13054
Garnett, M., Bernard, K., Zajac, L., Hoye, J., & Dozier, M. (2020). Parental sensitivity mediates the sustained effect of Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up on cortisol in middle childhood. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 121, e104809.
Lind, T., Bernard, K., & Dozier, M. (2020). Promoting compliance in children referred to Child Protective Services: A randomized clinical trial. Child Development, 91, 563-576.
Valadez, E., A., Tottenham, N., Tabachnick, A. R., & Dozier, M. (2020). Early parenting intervention effects on brain responses to maternal cues among high-risk children. American Journal of Psychiatry, 177(9), 818-826. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.20010011
Research Projects
Areas: Clinical science, behavioral neuroscience, developmental, health, human neuroimaging
We are examining whether an early intervention affects brain activation among 13-15 year olds.
Researchers: Mary Dozier, Jeffrey Spielberg
Parents were randomly assigned to an intervention group or to a control group. Children's DNA methylation was examined before and after the intervention.
Researchers: Mary Dozier, Tania Roth
We are studying whether a parenting intervention implemented when children were infants has effects in adolescence. We are examining effects on adolescents’ brain and behavioral outcomes. Included among the things we study are adolescents’ production of cortisol (a stress hormone), their interactions with their parents, and their ability to regulate emotional responses when frustrated.
Julie Hubbard and her students are collaborating with Mary Dozier and the Infant-Caregiver Project to investigate the peer relations outcomes of children who received the Attachment and Bio-Behavioral Catch-Up program in infancy. Peer relations outcomes assessed in this project include video-based measures of children's social information processing, playgroups to quantify children's social interactions, and a video game to assessment of children's reactive and proactive aggression.
Researchers: Mary Dozier, Julie Hubbard
