Department of Psychology

P.O. Box 208205

New Haven, CT 06520-8205

Phone: 203-432-4575

Fax: 203-432-7147

Edward Zigler received a B.S. at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and obtained his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1958. He taught at the University of Missouri at Columbia for one year before coming to Yale University in 1959.

Professor Zigler was a member of the National Planing and Steering Committee of both Project head Start and project Follow Through. In 1970, he was names by President Nixon to become the first director of the office of Child Development (now the Administration on Children, youth and Families) and Chief of the U.S. Children’s Bureau. While in Washington, Dr. Zigler was responsible for administering the nation’s Head Start program. As Director of OCD, he led the efforts in conceptualizing and mounting such innovative programs a s Health Start, Home Start, Education for Parenthood, the Child Development Associate program, and the Child and Family Resource Program.

Upon leaving government, Dr. Zigler continued to assist policy makers by serving on the President’s committee on Mental Retardation and, at President Ford’s request, chairing the Vietnamese Children’s Resettlement Advisory Group. In 1980 Dr. Zigler was called upon by President Carter to chair the fifteenth Anniversary head Start committee, a body charged with plotting the future course of this major intervention program. Recently he was a member of the Advisory Committee on Head Start Quality and Expansion and of the planning committee for Early Head Start program for families and children ages zero to three.

Professor Zigler has served as a special consultant to He also appears with regularity as an expert witness before many congressional committees and is frequently called upon by the media to comment on social policy issues concerning our nation’s children and families.

At Yale, Professor Zigler directs a distinguished laboratory engaged in a variety of basic and applied studies of child development and family functioning. His scholarly work cuts across the field of mental retardation, psychopathology, intervention program for economically disadvantaged children and the effects of out-of-home care on the children of working parents. He headed a national committee of distinguished Americans charges with examining the possibility of making infant care leaves a reality in America, work that inspired the Family and Medical leave Act of 1993.

Professor Zigler is the author or editor of 26 books and has produced over 500 scholarly articles. He is a member of the editorial boards of 10 professional journals.

Dr. Zigler has received numerous honors, including the Harold W. McGraw, Jr., Prize in Education and awards from the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., Foundation, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of pediatrics, the National Association for Reta4ded Citizens, the American Association on Mental Deficiency, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the national Head Start Association, and the American Orthopsychiatric Association where he was the 1993-94 President.

Professor Zigler is currently Sterling professor of Psychology at Yale University where he is also director of the Bush Center in Child Development and Social policy. He is the Head of the Psychology Section of Yale’s Child Study Center.