Andrew Meltzoff, Ph.D.
Professor Co-director, UW Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences
Advising:
Not accepting new graduate students in 2025-2026.
Areas:
Developmental
Interests: Social and Cognitive Development in Infants and Young Children; Imitation; Intentionality; Linking Behavior to Dev. Cog. Neuroscience.
Links:
Research
I explore the development of infants' understanding of other people, that is, precursors to "theory of mind." Emphasis is on the development of intention and self-other correspondences. Specific research includes imitation, memory, and social-cognitive development. I am increasingly doing collaborative work on linking developmental to social psychology and child development behavior to neuroscience measures.
Education
Oxford University (1976)
- February 9, 2024 Andrew Meltzoff co-authors Developmental Psychology article on how parents' conversational approaches to BLM differ by race
- June 12, 2023 Andrew Meltzoff elected to National Academy of Education
- September 21, 2022 Sapna Cheryan, Andrew Meltzoff and Allison Master's Research Referenced in State of CS 2022
- July 29, 2022 Sapna Cheryan, Andrew Meltzoff and Allison Master write opinion piece in Scientific American about the lack of women in computer science and engineering
- September 14, 2021 Liliana Lengua and Andrew Meltzoff explain how scientists are racing to unravel the pandemic’s toll on kids’ brains in this Seattle Times article.
- March 11, 2021 This article in the Washington Post cites a study by Allison Master, Sapna Cheryan, and Andrew Meltzoff.
- February 18, 2021 Congratulations to Andrew Meltzoff, who has received the G. Stanley Hall Award! He was featured in this APA Division 7 article.
- May 20, 2020 Allison Master, Andy Meltzoff, Sapna Cheryan participated in the National Science Foundation's 2020 STEM For All Video Showcase. Their video, "Feeling Connected to Others Can Improve STEM Engagement" won a Presenter's Choice Award
- May 18, 2020 Andrew Meltzoff talks about the moral dilemmas surrounding COVID-19, in this UW News article.
- May 4, 2020 Andrew Meltzoff has been honored by the Association for Psychological Science with a William James Fellow Award for 2020.
- April 20, 2020 Andy Meltzoff just received the Association for Psychological Science, William James Fellows Award. This award honors APS Members for their lifetime of significant intellectual contributions to the basic science of psychology
- January 11, 2019 A study by Andrew Melztoff and ILABS, featured in this UW News story, proposes association between anticipation of touch and executive function in children
- August 6, 2018 Andrew Meltzoff’s study on babies and empathy is featured in this Parent Map article
- July 18, 2018 Andrew Meltzoff I-LABS study of infants featured in UW Today
- May 31, 2018 Sapna Cheryan and Andy Meltzoff’s videos are among those featured in this UW News article highlighting the six projects that came from the University of Washington.
- March 5, 2018 Andy Meltzoff’s research on the development of empathy in very young babies, using a new technique called magnetoencephalography, is the subject of this Wall Street Journal article.
- February 13, 2018 Andrew Meltzoff and I-LABS study cited in two articles: KNKX and UW Daily.
- January 28, 2018 Andy Meltzoff is quoted in this UW News article about his research on how babies learn through touch.
- October 29, 2017 Sapna Cheryan, Allison Master, and Andy Meltzoff publish an op-ed in the LA Times on how toys can be used to decrease the gender gap in STEM fields. The piece includes a story about Cheryl Kaiser’s daughter!
- August 9, 2017 Andrew Meltzoff discusses how imitation makes us human in this news article.
- May 10, 2017 Andy Meltzoff, Sapna Cheryan and Allison Master’s study on early exposure to robot programming as a tool to combat gender stereotypes in tech has been extensively covered in the news lately.
- March 14, 2017 Andy Meltzoff was interviewed by 89.3KPCC about his research on how early in life social bias in gender roles affects children’s ability to learn math skills.
- February 28, 2017 Andy Meltzoff talks about synchronicity assisting in cooperation among children with 89.3 KPCC radio host, Devin Browne.
- December 7, 2016 Andy Meltzoff was just elected to the Society of Experimental Psychologists.
- November 23, 2016 The study of children’s knowledge of race and gender by Andy Meltzoff has been the subject of a couple of recent articles.
- September 14, 2016 UW Today recently wrote about a study co-authored by Andy Meltzoff and Sapna Cheryan.
- July 25, 2016 Congratulations to Andrew Meltzoff who has received the Koffka Medal from Germany for his work on infant social cognition.
- December 9, 2015 UW Today just put out an article highlighting a collaboration between UW developmental psychologists and computer scientists titled UW Roboticists Learn to Teach Robots from Babies. The roboticists collaborated with UW psychology professor and I-LABS co-director Andrew Meltzoff, who was interviewed for the story.
- August 5, 2015 UW Today posted an article on new findings by researchers at the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS) about babies learning language by gaze shifting.
- April 20, 2015 The more kids act in sync, the more they think they are in sync – at least that is what Andy Meltzoff and the team at I-LABS have found.
- April 6, 2015 Andy Meltzoff and the I-Labs team find that bath time is more than just bubble fun and sweet baby smells.
- April 6, 2015 Are stereotypes of who goes into computer science and engineering keeping women out of the field?
- April 2, 2015 Think you know what an engineer or computer scientist look like? Our stereotypes are limiting the field.
- November 5, 2014 Sapna Cheryan and Andy Meltzoff make the news about classroom design – turns out where you are can impact how you learn -
- November 5, 2014 Andy Meltzoff is in the news with his work on how toddlers adjust to adult anger -
- October 22, 2014 Andy Meltzoff is in the news as a panelist for "The Case for Early Learning". Check it out -
- October 22, 2014 Andy Meltzoff and Betty Repacholi continue to make the news -
- October 15, 2014 Great work by I-Labs, Andy Meltzoff & Betty Repacholi is highlighted here:
- November 6, 2013 Andy Meltzoff (Professor) explains how brain maps change when babies learn through imitation.
- June 28, 2011 Dario Cvencek, Psychology post-doc, Andrew Meltzoff, and Anthony Greenwald’s study on culturally communicated d messages about math was the featured in the June 2011 issue of Columns, the UW Alumni Association’s magazine.
- March 28, 2011 Andrew Meltzoff and Peter Kahn presented at the Osaka-UW Workshop on campus in March.
- March 28, 2011 Dario Cvencek, lead author and a postdoc at the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, and co-authors Anthony Greenwald and Andrew Meltzoff's….
- September 27, 2010 King TV’s "Learning for Life" special opened with interviews with Patricia Kuhl and Andrew Meltzoff along with a visit to I-LABS.
- June 8, 2010 I-LABS' multi-year, multimillion-dollar initiative that will develop insights into how children learn was featured in University Week.
- January 5, 2010 Andrew Meltzoff was featured in the first episode of the PBS series "This Emotional Life." "Paul Allen-conceived PBS series looks at human emotions,"
- November 3, 2009 Remember in August 2007 when a study co-authored by Andy Metzloff made headlines?
- September 26, 2009 From baby scientists to a science of social learning
- July 28, 2009 Andrew Meltzoff and co-author Patricia Kuhl: "Learning is social, computational, supported by neural systems linking people,"
- July 22, 2009 New 'science of learning' could reinvent teaching techniques
- April 27, 2009 Andy Meltzoff was recently elected as a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
- April 23, 2009 Andrew Meltzoff named Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences
- September 30, 2008 The Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences was featured in the recent University Week with Andrew Meltzoff and Rechele Brooks quoted in the article.
- September 25, 2008 Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences was featured in the recent University Week with Andrew Meltzoff and Rechele Brooks quoted in the article.
- July 21, 2008 I-LABS, was also featured in A&S Perspectives for its research involving non-invasive technology for examining brain activity.
- April 21, 2008 Pat Kuhl, Andy Meltzoff, I-LABS, and their collaborators, obtained funding to bring MEG (magneto-encephalography) to Psychology and UW.
- April 7, 2008 Andrew Meltzoff, Rebecca Williamson, and John Gottman, were interviewed for an article on a visit by the Dalai Lama.
- January 17, 2008 Andrew Meltzoff and John Gottman participated in panel discussions with the Dalai Lama during his visit to Seattle in April.
- August 20, 2007 Andrew Meltzoff and Drs. Frederick Zimmerman and Dimitri Christakis, both with Health Sciences Child Health Institute, for their "Baby DVDs, videos may hinder, not help, infants' language development" research.
- April 2, 2007 Betty Repacholi and Andrew Meltzoff, work made the front page of the UW web site last week.
- April 1, 2007 Toddlers engage in 'emotional eavesdropping' to guide their behavior
- January 22, 2007 Congratulations to faculty who are included in the UW Alumni Association's Columns magazine's listing of the "100 top books by 100 UW authors." David Barash, John Gottman, Patricia Kuhl
- October 2, 2006 Belated congrats to Andrew Meltzoff for two awards in 2005: The Kenneth Craik Award in Psychology, Cambridge University and the Outstanding research award from Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.
- August 21, 2006 Andrew Meltzoff, co-author of findings was featured in the August 17th University Week.
- November 14, 2005 Rechele Brooks and Andrew Meltzoff work on babies understanding language was featured in University Week.
- November 10, 2005 If babies follow gaze early, language learning improved
- March 7, 2005 Patricia Kuhl, Andrew Meltzoff, Daniel Bernstein, Maritza Rivera-Gaxiola, and Lindsay Klarman's work at the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences was the cover story of the Seattle Times’ Pacific Northwest magazine.
- March 6, 2005 HOW DO BABIES learn to talk? (.pdf 304KB)
- March 6, 2005 A UW couple leads our new thinking about babies' amazing minds (219KB .pdf)
- November 4, 2002 Infants more likely to view an object when another person looks with open, not closed, eyes
- October 1, 1999 Peering into the amazing mind behind those baby blue eyes
- Meltzoff, A.N., Waismeyer, A., & Gopnik, A. (2012). Learning about causes from people: Observational causal learning in 24-month-old infants. Developmental Psychology, 48, 1215-1228.
- Meltzoff, A. N. (2007). “Like me”: a foundation for social cognition. Developmental Science, 10, 126-134
- Gopnik, A., Meltzoff, A. N., & Kuhl, P. K. (1999). The scientist in the crib: Minds, brains, and how children learn. New York: William Morrow.
- Meltzoff, A. N. (1995). Understanding the intentions of others: Re-enactment of intended acts by 18-month-old children. Developmental Psychology, 31, 838-850.