Dr. Baker-Ward

Dr. Lynne Baker-Ward grew up in rural Western North Carolina and became interested in the effects of early experience on cognitive development when she was a teenaged volunteer with a Head Start program.  This experience led her to major in psychology when she enrolled at Wake Forest University where she was a Carswell Scholar, and to continue her training in developmental psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research specialty is in cognitive development, especially memory development. Much of her work has examined the age-related cognitive changes that affect children’s capacities to provide testimony in legal proceedings, and the ways in which alternative approaches to the management of child witnesses affect the accuracy and completeness of young children’s reports of their experiences. With graduate student colleagues in the M&ND (Memory and Narrative Development) Laboratory, she is currently examining the development of autobiographical memory. Dr. Baker-Ward teaches graduate courses in theories of development, cognitive development, and ethics, and supervises undergraduate research.

A member of the Academy of Outstanding Teachers at NC State, Dr. Baker-Ward was named an Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor and has been honored on campus with the Parks Scholars Outstanding Mentor award, college awards for research and advising, and the Poole Award for Continuing Excellence in Teaching. She served from 2010-2017 as Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Department Head for the Psychology Department at NC State, and is a long-standing member of the Executive Committee for the Center for Developmental Science at UNC-CH.  Her additional professional activities have included service as Chair of the Educational Testing Service’s Psychology Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Committee and membership on the editorial team of the Journal of Cognition and Development. She is currently an associate editor for Developmental Psychology. Dr. Baker-Ward is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.