Executive Director, Brazelton Touchpoint Center 

Child, adolescent, and general psychiatrist, Joshua Sparrow, M.D., DFAACAP, is executive director of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center (BTC) in the Division of Development of Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, where he also holds an appointment in the Department of Psychiatry, and is associate professor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, part time. Dr. Sparrow’s care for children hospitalized for severe psychiatric disturbances, often associated with physical and sexual abuse, and societal abuse and neglect, prompted his interest in the social, economic, and racism-related determinants of health and mental health, and in community self-strengthening, community-based prevention and health promotion. He has led numerous governmental and philanthropic research, training, and technical assistance grants (e.g., as principal investigator for the Office of Head Start’s National Center for Parent, Family and Community Engagement 2010-20), and advised government agencies, nonprofits, academic centers, and philanthropies. He has given hundreds of lectures nationally and internationally; written numerous scholarly papers, nine books translated into more than 20 languages, and hundreds of articles for the general public; and received the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Jeanne Spurlock, MD Award for Culture and Diversity in 2022. Dr. Sparrow co-founded the Indigenous Early Learning Collaborative together with Dr.Tarajean Yazzie-Mintz (Diné), among many other programs, at BTC, which provides professional and leadership development, community and systems capacity building, organizational learning and change, program evaluation, research (including community based participatory research and community-based inquiry) in perinatal, pediatric and mental health, early childhood care and education, home visiting, and child welfare.

Senta Greene is the founder and CEO of Full Circle Consulting Systems, Inc., an international consulting firm specializing in the science of child and adolescent development, transformational leadership, community, and family engagement. With a distinguished, 28-year career in education, she is a frequent writer, speaker, and advisor on cultural humility, inclusive education, family engagement, transformational leadership, and reflective practice. She has testified before the United States Congress and has been recognized at the state, national, and international levels with awards for excellence in teaching and service. Her work has stimulated innovative curriculum designs in early childhood education, groundbreaking policy development in special education, and systems change in the United States, Austria, Finland, and Jamaica. She received a BA in child development and an MA in early childhood special education with a specialization in infant-toddler care and services from California State University, Northridge.

Alicia F. Lieberman, Ph.D. is Irving B. Harris Endowed Chair in Infant Mental Health, Professor in the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and director of the UCSF Child Trauma Research Program. She directs the Early Trauma Treatment Network, a center of SAMHSA National Child Traumatic Stress Network funded since 2001 with the mission to increase access and raise the standard of care for trauma-exposed young children and their families across the United States. She is the senior developer of Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), an evidence-based treatment for traumatized children aged birth-five with an international reach in Australia, Hong Kong, Israel and Europe and nationally disseminated in 40+ states through 2500+ rostered clinicians and 80+ CPP trainers. CPP has been successfully extended to the perinatal period as Perinatal Child-Parent Psychotherapy (P-CPP). Her research involves treatment outcome studies in pregnancy and with traumatized young children from low-income and under-represented minority groups. 

She is the author of The Emotional Life of the Toddler, described as “groundbreaking” and now in its second edition to mark its 25th year in continuous print. She is also the author of numerous professional books and articles on pregnancy and early childhood mental health. Born in Paraguay, she received her professional training in Israel and the United States. Her cross-cultural experience as a Jewish Latina informs her commitment to increasing access and raising the standard of care for low-income and minority children and families. 

She is Board Member Emerita of the Zero to Three Board of Directors and a board member and past board chair of the Irving Harris Foundation. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2024 Honorary Doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2023 Holly Smith Award UCSF Award for Exceptional University Service, 2020 Zero to Three Lifetime Achievement Award and 2016 Rene Spitz Award for Lifetime Achievement from the  World Association of Infant Mental Health (WAIMH), and 2016 Hero Award from the San Francisco Department of Public Health. 

Assistant State Superintendent, Maryland State Department of Education

Sarah Neville-Morgan is the Assistant State Superintendent for the Division of Early Childhood at the Maryland State Department of Education. She previously served as Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction at the California Department of Education and as Systems Development and Technical Assistance Manager at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), where she led cross-agency planning and policy initiatives impacting early childhood and family support programs nationwide. With over 20 years of experience in early education policy and systems change, she is a 2025 Annie E. Casey Foundation Children and Family Fellow. Sarah served as Systems Development & TA Manager at the Administration for Children and Families. Before joining Children and Families, Sarah served as Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction and Director of Early Education and Support for the California Department of Education. During her tenure at the California Department of Education, she oversaw early education, expanded learning and special education just to name a few. Sarah also served the state of California in various roles such as Deputy Director of Program Management at First 5 California and Academic Child Development Specialist at UC Davis.

Professor, University of California, Davis

Yuko Munakata is a Professor of Psychology and director of the Cognition in Context Lab in the Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California, Davis. She was previously a professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder and in Psychology at the University of Denver. Her work on child development has been funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1998, and has been published in top scientific journals and featured in the popular press, including The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Parents Magazine, and even The Onion. Her TEDx talk on The science behind how parents affect child development has reached millions of viewers. Dr. Munakata received a B.A. in Psychology and B.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University. She then conducted postdoctoral research in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.