Watch Pamela Cantor, M.D. answer questions from parents in this video series from The Human Potential L.A.B. and Learning Heroes, part of their Go Beyond Grades campaign.

Spring 2025

In an op-ed published in The Hechinger Report, Pamela Cantor, M.D. challenges the negative labels often applied to young people and advocates for a science-based, strengths-focused approach to support their recovery and growth.

March 31, 2025

Pamela Cantor, M.D., was featured in The New York Times, discussing the lasting impact of the pandemic on students. She compares the class of 2021 to actors rehearsing in isolation, then suddenly performing live.

March 14, 2025

Pamela Cantor, M.D. joined the Winter Webinar Series hosted by the Center for Transformative Teaching & Learning (CTTL) to explore how psychological safety and trust are essential precursors to fostering a sense of belonging in learning environments.

February 13, 2025

Pamela Cantor, M.D., shares 9 actionable tips to help young people feel safe and supported during the Los Angeles wildfires. Learn the biology of stress: how stress affects the brain and why relationships and routines are essential for recovery and resilience.

January 22, 2025

Watch highlights from recent Pamela Cantor, M.D. interviews and presentations, featuring her insights on topics including education, human development, and unlocking human potential.

A Forbes article by Talia Milgrom-Elcott, leader of Beyond100K, highlights the science of optimism and how it can transform lives. Quoting Pamela Cantor, M.D., the article describes the link between our actions and biological resilience, emphasizing a commitment to meaningful steps that unlock human potential.

Pamela Cantor, M.D. reflects on David Brooks’ “How the Ivy League Broke America.” “A meritocracy should discover talent and skills of all kinds and grow it.”

November 20, 2024

Pamela Cantor, M.D., delivered the keynote at the 18th Annual Hope for Depression Luncheon, highlighting resilience, relationships, and the power of agency. The event was reported on by New York Social Diary.

Pamela Cantor, M.D., explains the biology of learning and its connection to belonging in this video from History Co:Lab as part of the Building Belonging Project, a product of the Jacobs Foundation and New America’s Learning Sciences Exchange (LSX) fellowship.

Eric Tucker reflects on Pamela Cantor, M.D.’s keynote at the Advancing Artificial Intelligence, Measurement and Assessment System Innovation Summit. Like scientific revolutions of the past, Dr. Cantor contends that we need a paradigm shift in understanding and measuring human learning and development.

The tragic shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia highlights the ongoing threat of gun violence in schools. Pamela Cantor, M.D., explores the biological impact of stress on children's ability to learn and provides tips for adults to help reassure and support young people in the aftermath of such events.

In a world where uncertainty seems to be the only constant, maintaining a positive outlook is more crucial than ever. A Forbes article by Talia Milgrom-Elcott, leader of Beyond100K, delves into the power of optimism as a solution to 2024's complexities and challenges and shares insights from Pamela Cantor, M.D.

A research synthesis by Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, Na’ilah Suad Nasir, Pamela Cantor, M.D., and Hirokazu Yoshikawa offers a conceptual foundation for rethinking the nature of learning, the work of teaching, and the purpose and design of schools and youth-facing policies.

Pamela Cantor, M.D. explores the differences between online transactions and relationships. Some kids have thousands of online connections, but they shouldn’t be confused for real friendships. In many cases they are hollow promises. Social media can make us feel more isolated despite being more 'connected' than ever.

Pamela Cantor, M.D. explains what working memory is, how it works, why it's the gateway to learning, and the forces, including social media, that impede its critical function.

In this episode of The Greatness Machine, Pamela Cantor, M.D. delves deeply into the essence of self-actualization and offers valuable guidance for unlocking the boundless possibilities that lie within each of us.

New insights into the human brain and biology are challenging long-held but false assumptions about talent, learning, and human potential.

March 4, 2024, Austin, Texas

Pamela Cantor, M.D. delivers a talk on the brain's astonishing malleability, and the forces at play to unlock the potential in each and every person.

November 3, 2023, Boise, Idaho

Pamela Cantor, M.D. discusses the inequities of the current education system and proposes a new vision for learning grounded in whole-child development.

Click here to access all of the articles Pamela Cantor, M.D. has written for Psychology Today.

A framework for the development of skills children need for success in school and beyond.

Pamela Cantor, M.D. delivers the keynote address, “A Fierce Sense of Belonging: Fuel for Engagement, Motivation, and Learning”.

July 18–20, 2023, Online

How Family Engagement Can Support Student Mental Health and Well-Being.

May 23, 2023, 1–2:30 PM ET

Human Variation and How People Learn

May 4, 2023

The struggle to overcome learning loss and build resiliency.

In a keynote speech, Pamela Cantor, M.D. explores how human connections wire the brain and fuel learning.

April 21-23, 2023

Part of the 2023 Attendance Awareness Campaign, this webinar focuses on strategies for increasing attendance, engagement, and belonging by drawing on the assets available to schools and communities.

March 30, 2023

Featured Session: How New Attention to R&D Will Transform Learning

March 6–9, 2023

What is it about adolescents and the adolescent brain that makes them particularly vulnerable to stress? And what can we as teachers, parents, and caregivers do to support them?

NPR's A. Martínez interviews Pamela Cantor, M.D. about a Pew report that finds U.S. parents' biggest concern is the mental health of their children.

Don't be afraid of A.I. Chatbots. They could be key to boosting your child's learning.

Reimagining education in the United States.

Is the stress of the holiday season wearing you down? Here's a way out.

Learning Loss: Learn What We Can Do About It Watch Dr. Pamela Cantor, M.D. in conversation with NBC News' Kate Snow, National PTA President Anna King, and Co-CEO of Excellence Community Charter Schools Dr. Charlene Reid as they answer parents' top questions about supporting young learners. From motivation and resilience to summer learning and academic success, explore expert insights on what truly helps children thrive. Watch the full discussion here.

U.S. Department of Education, National Coordinating Conference

Dec 7, 2022

National PTA Podcast, featuring Pamela Cantor, M.D., on how to help your child through crises.

Every human skill in every person has a developmental range, but the sad fact is that most of us never get to explore the upper limits, whether in classrooms, in sports, or in the arts.

Shawn Ginwright discusses his new book, The Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves, and provides what he describes as a “roadmap” for people to embody the change they want to see in society.

In her book The Stolen Year: How COVID Changed Children’s Lives, and Where We Go Now, Anya Kamenetz writes that in March 2021, experts in pediatric infectious diseases reported that American youth were experiencing food insecurity, lack of socialization, depression, isolation….and were suffering academically, emotionally, socially, and physically.

Stressed out? Here are simple ways to protect your mind and body from illness and injury.

New research in youth and adolescent development and what it means for creating learning contexts that truly support and nurture the whole child.

It may be scary to talk with your children about school shootings, but it's important to try.

“The desire to fit in is one of the most powerful, least understood forces in a society.” That’s what Todd Rose writes in his book, Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions.

What you think you know about adolescents might just be plain wrong.

All Kids Thriving: Psychology Today—Unsure whether to talk to children about the war in Ukraine? Hearing the truth from someone they trust can be reassuring.

Renee Prince, a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW), leverages research and trends in the mental health field to ensure that Turnaround for Children’s (now the Center for Whole Child Education at ASU) tools and services are informed by current clinical knowledge of trauma-informed practices.

So what is it about adolescents and the adolescent brain that has made them particularly vulnerable to pandemic stress. And what can we as teachers, parents, and caregivers do to support them?

Does an environment that is equitable for one child necessarily mean it becomes unequitable for another? Where is the balance, and how does it get struck?

What can the rest of us learn from Duncan-Andrade’s experience in building East Oakland’s Roses in Concrete school and apply to our own situations—as parents, educators, and community members—to rethink and reorient community education?

The goal of wellness might be simple, but Jeff Duncan-Andrade's remedy to reach it is not: A complete rethink and rebuild of public education, one built through something he calls “community responsiveness.”

In part two, Zaretta Hammond outlines practical steps for teachers to become, ideally, personal trainers of cognitive development.

What if children find themselves in spaces that teacher, educator, and author Zaretta Hammond calls “inequitable by design,” that prevent instead of promote safety and belonging?

Putting the Science of Learning and Development Into Action

What experiences can education technology offer to support those relationships and spur engagement and motivation to learn?

Trauma, Instructional Loss and the Resilience of the Learning Brain

May 18, 2021

How children develop through a system of dynamic relationships and the collective set of contexts that they experience across their life spans.

Diana De Corte and Alexei Nichols on how Turnaround for Children's Well-Being Index works at their K-5 school in the Bronx.

Christina Theokas explains why Turnaround for Children developed its Well-Being Index.

When it comes to learning and thriving during the pandemic, many students have faced one obstacle after another—including lack of access to high-speed internet and devices, disconnection from teachers and friends, and the cancellation of sports, clubs and church choirs. But where many people see obstacles, Hal Smith sees opportunity.

What exactly can the Federal Department of Education do to respond to enduring questions of how to address inequities in funding, academic outcomes, and opportunities when reimagining education in America?

How learning can and should work in the face of a pandemic, social unrest, and more.

In part 2 of our conversation with Margaret Beale Spencer, the Marshall Field IV Professor of Urban Education at the University of Chicago, we dive deeper into Dr. Spencer’s scientific research on human development and ask her for guidance to address the elephant in many rooms today: racism.

Part 1 of a conversation with Margaret Beale Spencer about human vulnerability, resilience and context, which are concepts that Professor Spencer, University of Chicago, has spent her career studying and addressing.

The 45-minute docu-training film featuring Pamela Cantor, M.D., aims to help educators mitigate the effects of grief, trauma, and emotional stressors facing students amidst the uncertainty of COVID-19.

The disruption to schooling caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is an opportunity to rethink education.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pamela Cantor, M.D. offers a framework for educators and parents to manage and surmount stress, the 3 R's, relationships, routines, and resilience.

Our bodies and brains are integrated systems, and making self-care part of our daily routine—even during the most challenging of times—can provide the stabilizing sense of control that builds resilience.

Pamela Cantor, M.D. introduces the concept of 3 R's: relationships, routines, and resilience to help parents and caregivers navigate the pandemic.

A conversation with Pamela Cantor, M.D. in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic about managing disruption, stress, health, and safety.

Mention innovation in America, and what comes to mind? Silicon Valley? NASA? Tech firms? Not for Jim Shelton. He thinks: education. In fact, he wonders: Why, as we learn more about the science of learning and development, shouldn’t education—like, say, the military—have a full research and development infrastructure?

Now is a time to interrogate behaviors, attitudes and beliefs about how you interact with people. Are they harming or marginalizing them further? And how are you being an ally or a co-conspirator in helping people who are furthest from opportunity and marginalized to come closest to opportunity and less marginalized?

Race in America is a daily part of nearly every aspect of our lives including, of course, education. And that intersection where race, identity, equity and education all meet—that’s where Na’ilah Suad Nasir has dedicated her research, action, and career.

If, as the saying goes, learning happens everywhere, how can our community based programs—the ones outside the classroom that serve and engage our children and youth—use the Science of Learning and Development to rethink and redesign what kids do after the end of school bell rings?

As the Science of Learning and Development becomes better understood—the discoveries that connect how children develop and learn and how their environments can make or break their progress—a challenge becomes clear: turning that research into practice.

Today we have scientific knowledge about learning, development, and talent that didn’t exist when many of the systems that serve children, in and out of school, were designed.

Pamela Cantor, M.D. Delivers Keynote Speech to Washington, D.C. Public School Leaders

July 30, 2019

Enhancing the Lives of All Young People.

Giving students time to explore ideas with no immediate grade pressure helps motivate them to be creative and take intellectual risks.

In order to learn, students need to feel safe, cared for, and emotionally connected to their teachers and each other.

A research synthesis by Linda Darling-Hammond aimed at educators.

Letting students choose books to read helps them develop a sense of autonomy and ownership over their learning.

By regularly reviewing students’ behavior and learning as a team, teachers can ensure that every student is seen, supported, and celebrated.

For many struggling students, consistently spending informal time with a trusted educator supports emotional well-being and academic growth.

Research shows that greeting students as they come into class bolsters a feeling of belonging and readiness to learn.

Research shows that students who feel safe and supported by adults at school are better able to learn.

When students make “I notice” and “I wonder” comments on course content, teachers can see what they know—and what they need to learn.

When students help create their classrooms' rules and culture, they’re more engaged and invested in learning.

When teachers use strategies tailored to children who have experienced trauma, all students reap the emotional and academic benefits.

Research shows that taking some time each day to practice mindfulness as a class helps students prepare themselves for learning.

Research shows that taking some time each day to practice mindfulness as a class helps students prepare themselves for learning.

When teachers model self-regulation by using a voice that is calm, neutral, and assertive, they help students feel cared for—and ready to learn.

Explicitly modeling the process of prioritizing tasks builds students’ ability to organize and manage their time.

The key is giving students the decision-making tools they need to shape their own learning experiences.

The research is clear: Strong relationships with educators help students develop the cognitive skills they need to learn and thrive.

Students deepen their understanding and build a sense of community by engaging with their peers’ reasoned arguments.

Sentence starters that students use to join a class discussion encourage both academic thinking and social connectedness.

Pamela Cantor, M.D. reflects on the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and the impact that is having on the sense of safety.

A synthesis of the role of relationships and key macro and micro-contexts—poverty, racism, families, communities, schools, and peers—in supporting and/or undermining the healthy development of children and youth, using a relational developmental systems framework.

A synthesis of foundational knowledge from multiple scientific disciplines regarding how humans develop in context.

This two-hour documentary explores the science of learning, including research and insights from neuroscientists, psychologists, and educators working to reimagine the future of education—Pamela Cantor, M.D., and teachers from Fairmont Neighborhood School in the Bronx, among them!

NBC News' Hoda Kotbe interviews Pamela Cantor, M.D., actress Goldie Hawn, Superintendent Dr. Meria Joel Carstarphen, and Principal Peter DeWitt on what it takes to build safe and supportive schools.

Pamela Cantor, M.D. provides advice to parents on how to restore a sense of safety for children in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy.

Guidance for parents in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting.

Children exposed to a traumatic event may be at higher risk for developing mental disorders.