Research Expertise and Interest

adolescence, brain development, behavioral and emotional health, pubertal maturation, affective neuroscience, social neuroscience

Research Description

Ron Dahl is a pediatrician and developmental scientist with more than 30 years of experience working at the interface of research, practice, and policy with the goal of improving the lives of children and adolescents. His work has focused on basic studies of neurobiological and psychological development, clinical studies in pediatrics and child psychiatry, sleep, arousal, and emotion regulation, social and emotional learning, and consideration of the social, family, and cultural contexts that shape neurobehavioral development. He has published more than 300 scientific articles in the areas of child and adolescent development, behavioral/emotional health in youth, adolescent brain development, and the public health/policy implications of this work. An emerging area of research brings a developmental science perspective on the vulnerabilities and opportunities for social learning being created by rapid changes in digital technology. 

He is a Distinguished Professor in the School of Public Health UC Berkeley and Founding Director of the Center for the Developing Adolescent. He served for 12 years as Director, Institute of Human Development, and previously served as president of the Society for Research on Child Development; and was one of the founding editors of the journal Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.