Dr. Molly Scott is the Associate Director of APL and a research scientist at the Temple Infant & Child Lab examining the impact of on-going playful learning projects. Before this, she was the Goldberg Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the NEED Lab at Teachers College, Columbia University. Working on the Baby’s First Years project, the first randomized controlled trial examining the impact of poverty reduction on family wellbeing and children’s developmental outcomes, Molly led the piloting and training of the Age 4 data collection wave on a national scale. She received her PhD at the Temple Infant and Child Lab working with Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek. During her time at Temple, she worked on the Language for Reading project, a multi-state educational intervention focused on increasing the vocabulary ability of preschoolers from disadvantaged backgrounds through shared book reading and playful learning activities. Her dissertation study was conducted in Head Start preschools and examined how improving the categorization abilities of young children can create more meaningful vocabulary learning experiences. Molly has also been a Fellow in the Temple Public Policy Lab and served as a co-chair of the Columbia University Postdoctoral Society translating scientific journal articles from a multitude of disciplines for broader audiences. Her interests include using principles from the science of learning to improve pedagogies in the classroom, and translating developmental science for parents, teachers, policy makers, and other stakeholders.