Rohit and Harvanit Kumar Provide Gift to Support Postdocs Researching Childhood Development

By Sarah Steimer

The University of Chicago’s Committee on Education has announced that Rohit and Harvanit Kumar have generously provided a financial gift to the program. The funding is in support of postdocs in COE who have a particular interest and/or expertise in bringing statistical modeling or econometrics to cutting edge early childhood development. The gift will enable COE to bring creative, young scholars to the University of Chicago over the next five years, says Stephen W. Raudenbush, the Lewis-Sebring Distinguished Service Professor and the College Chair for COE.

Rohit says he had approached his friend, Victor O. Lima, Senior Instructional Professor in Economics, about getting reconnected with UChicago — but wasn’t sure how. Lima put Rohit in touch with the Becker Friedman Institute, and the Kumars began their collaboration with the university through a sponsorship of a conference, which became the Rohit and Harvanit Kumar Conference on the Economics of Early Childhood Education. They also sponsored a general research fund in social sciences for early childhood education.

While Rohit’s study took him through the economics division, his research didn’t focus on education. But he did take a class from labor economist Jim Heckman, one of the preeminent econometricians of his generation.

“When I was getting reacquainted with the department, I was curious — because I know he's always doing super interesting stuff,” Rohit says. “I started reading about some of his work and how impactful it's been on policy with respect to universal pre-K and how we think about early childhood development. There are real-world implications to his research.”

Because Harvanit is a child psychiatrist, early childhood education was an area both she and Rohit became passionate about. In this most recent gift, they hoped to encourage students interested in the quantitative analysis of early childhood education.

The Committee on Education was founded in 2006 in the pursuit of a distinctive “Chicago model” for producing knowledge about education, capitalizing on a combination of interdisciplinary scholarship and deep connections to practice, Raudenbush explains. Early childhood education is an area of strength within COE, he says, and about half of the committee’s 18 member faculty are deeply engaged in advancing knowledge about early learning with implications for practice and policy.

“Basic science is the foundation of our work,” Raudenbush says. “Our faculty ask how children learn to speak, read, and reason mathematically. At what age and through what interactions do children learn concepts of morality and fairness; social hierarchy and prejudice; beliefs about intelligence; payoffs to effort; skill in adopting the perspective of others; and about how and when to behave cooperatively or competitively? These basic questions are fascinating in themselves but also have fundamental implications for efforts to improve education and to reduce racial and social inequality in access to learning.”

Rohit noted the research showing that getting to kids early has a big impact on their future development. “Sometimes you can't really replace that with interventions later,” Rohit says. “The more that can become clear through research, the better funding you'll get for those programs. It's a matter of  figuring out what actually works, what's going to help kids out the most.”

According to Raudenbush, there is mounting evidence that early childhood interventions can have remarkable effects on the life course of children, particularly the most disadvantaged. To design and implement these interventions and make them effective at scale requires a deeper understanding of how interactions between caregivers and children optimally shape the skills and dispositions that facilitate learning; and how schools as organizations can be designed to support these interactions at scale.

“Their gift will bring new scholars who share these passions,” he says. “Of particular interest to Rohit and Vinnie is the importance of rigorous quantitative methods, not only in the basic science of early learning, but also in designing and evaluating interventions that seek to support the interactions among teachers, parents, and children that optimize learning.”

It will also, Rohit hopes, bring him back to connecting more with the university. The Kumars say they are eager for opportunities to interact with the faculty, students, and their work.

“The most important thing is that we want to fund research that actually improves people's lives,” Rohit says.