Robert L. Selman is the Roy E. Larsen Professor of Education and Human Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.  His research focuses on ways to promote the capacity of youth to coordinate personal, social, and cultural points of view, to utilize culturally informed social strategies in interpersonal and intergroup contexts, to be able to make well informed personal and social choices under challenging conditions, and to reflect upon the shared meaning of their close social relationships.  These competencies are promoted so as to enhance youths’ awareness of and inclination to take positive rather than negative risks in the interests of their own and others’ health, education, and welfare.

Selman has been: The recipient of a Careers Scientist Award from the National Institute of Mental Health (USA); a trustee of the Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health, one of the largest nonprofit providers of behavioral healthcare in the United States, a Scholar in Residence at the Russell Sage Foundation and Banks Street College: and awarded two Fulbright Fellowships to Iceland.  He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the American Educational Research Association. He has consulted to Highlights for Children, Sesame Street, The Walt Disney Company, and Walden Media, among other media organizations. Selman is undertaking both practice-based and translational research on the promotion of youth ethical and educational wellness and the prevention of debilitating academic, family, and cultural stress – both in the United States and China. He directs the XMedia research lab which has a current emphasis on the use of cross-media educational approaches to promote academic, ethical, and aesthetic awareness.