Dr. Steven R. Yussen is currently Professor in the Institute of Child Development in the College of Education & Human Development, at the University of Minnesota, where he also served for 8 years as Dean of the College. Previous positions included serving as Dean and Professor in the College of Education at the University of Iowa (also Professor of Psychology) and Professor and Chairperson of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  He completed his BA in psychology at Swarthmore College (1969) and his PhD in developmental psychology at the University of Minnesota (1973).

He has served on the national governing boards of the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, the Holmes Group (Midwest Vice President), and the Great Cities Council of Deans of Education (Vice President).

Dr. Yussen is widely known for his research on children’s learning and cognitive development and for his work on reading comprehension and memory.  He has also been the co-author of a leading textbook on child development, estimated to have been read by more than 300,000 students.

Among Dr. Yussen’s  other professional accomplishments and recognition for scholarly achievement are the following: publication of 70 research articles, book chapters, and several books and edited books;  service as Associate Editor for the journals Child Development and the Journal of Educational Psychology; recipient of a Spencer Fellowship, a Fulbright lectureship (the Hebrew University-Jerusalem), and a Guggenheim Fellowship.