News
The Wallace Foundation interviews CDA’s Co-Executive Director Adriana Galvan for an article on how adolescent brain development shapes risk-taking and learning, and why relationships, exploration, and access to out-of-school-time opportunities matter for developing adolescents.
An article from the Cornell Chronicle examines new research from NSCA member Anthony Burrow on how and why a sense of purpose might fluctuate during adolescence. “Let’s keep monitoring for experiences and settings that seem to support a sense of purpose, because if we do that, we might be able to curate more enduring positive experiences for young people,” says Burrow.
Linda Wilbrecht, member of the National Scientific Council on Adolescence and a professor in the Department of Psychology and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at UC Berkeley, has been elected as a 2025 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals. The honorees are among nearly 500 scientists, engineers, and innovators recognized for their scientifically and socially distinguished achievements.
Advisory Board Member Karen Pittman has been awarded the National Education Association’s prestigious 2026 Outstanding Service to Public Education Award. Previous recipients include Kent McGuire, Linda Darling-Hammond, Sesame Street, Mister Rogers, and President Clinton. Frequently referred to as the godmother of positive youth development, Karen has spent her career bringing research on adolescent development into policy and practice to help leaders realize they can do more than help a few young people “beat the odds” — they can make systemic changes that actually “change the odds.”
Ron Dahl, founding director of the CDA, has received the 2026 Huttenlocher Award. The Huttenlocher Award reflects transformative contributions to the field of developmental cognitive neuroscience that inspire future generations of researchers through unique insights. As well as CDA’s founding director, Ron is a NSCA member, pediatrician, developmental scientist, and professor of Public Health at UC Berkeley. For more than 30 years, he has worked with interdisciplinary research teams to advance understanding of child and adolescent development, behavioral/emotional health in youth, adolescent brain development, and the clinical, public health, and policy implications of this research—work that has resulted in more than 300 publications.