Joyce L. Epstein

"As Director of the National Network of Partnership Schools and the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships, Principal Research Scientist, and Research Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Epstein has conducted research and worked with elementary, middle, and high schools, districts, and state departments of education for many years to help educators build more effective programs of school, family, and community partnerships. Dr. Epstein has over 100 publications on the organization and effects of school, classroom, family, and peer environments, with many focused on school-family-community connections. In 1996, she established the National Network of Partnership Schools to facilitate the connections of research, policy, and practice for school improvement. Dr. Epstein serves on numerous editorial boards and advisory panels on parent involvement and school reform. She is a recipient of the Academy for Educational Development's 1991 Alvin C. Eurich Education Award and the 1997 Working Mother magazine award for her work on family-school partnerships, and co-winner of the 2005 American Orthopsychiatric Association's Blanche F. Ittleson Award for scholarship and service to strengthen school and family connections."