UCLA's Weisner to speak at WWU Feb. 10 on what's best for children

Thomas Weisner, a professor of anthropology in the departments of psychiatry (NPI Semel Institute, Center for Culture and Health) and anthropology at UCLA, will present “What’s best for children – and what this means in an unequal world?” from noon to 1:20 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 10, in Fairhaven College Auditorium as part of the World Issues Forums.

Weisner also will speak at 8:30 a.m. Feb. 10 in Communications Facility Room 231 regarding critical challenges to child wellbeing.

Weisner's research and teaching interests are in culture and human development, medical, psychological and cultural studies of families and children at risk; mixed methods, and evidence-informed policy. He is director of the Center for Culture & Health at UCLA and the Fieldwork and Qualitative Data: Laboratory in the Mental Retardation Research Center. Weisner has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and a member of the MacArthur Foundation research network on successful pathways in middle childhood. He is past president of the Society for Psychological Anthropology, and he's on the board of Child Fund International and a senior program advisor to the William T Grant Foundation.

Weisner is the co-author of "Higher Ground: New Hope for the Working Poor and Their Children," co-editor of "Making it work: Low-wage employment, family life and child development: New methods in the study of childhood and family life" and co-editor of "African families and the crisis of social change." His B.A. in anthropology is from Reed College, and his Ph.D is from Harvard University in anthropology and social relations.