Stephanie Ross Harris, M.A.

NIOST Research Associate

Stephanie Harris has over 20 years of experience working in educational and research settings. She has worked at the Wellesley Centers for Women since2004 and currently manages the longitudinal evaluation of the Build Our Kids’ Success Program (BOKS), a before-school physical activity program. The evaluation will examine and document child-level academic, social, nutrition knowledge, and physical activity outcomes associated with participation in BOKS over time. As a life-long fitness enthusiast (she previously ran marathons and now does triathlons), she is very excited to be involved with a research project investigating two of her main interests: physical activity and children’s development.

A selection of prior research projects Harris contributed to at the Centers include: the evaluation of the Boston Summer Learning Program as well as the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education 21st Century Community Learning Centers Summer Learning Programs, both of which investigated ways to stem students’ summer learning loss; Boston Ready, an evaluation assessing the effectiveness of a professional development intervention for preschools; and the Collaborative Language and Literacy Instruction Project, a professional development intervention implemented in districts across Ohio.

Before coming to the Centers for Women, she was Project Director of the Home and School Study of Language and Literacy Development, a longitudinal study at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, which followed a group of low-income students from preschool through high school. Findings from this study are presented in a book written by Harris and three colleagues titled Is Literacy Enough? Pathways to Academic Success for Adolescents, (Snow, Porche, Tabors, & Harris, 2007). She also enjoyed her work as a school psychologist in the Norwood and Woburn Public schools.

Harris holds a B.S. in Psychology and an M.A. in School Psychology and Counseling from Tufts University.