The Rowe Lab is based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. We study the role of social interactions in children’s cognitive development, primarily language and literacy development from birth to age five. 

Meredith Rowe is an educational psychologist interested in environmental effects on learning. She examines the role of parent and family factors in children’s early language and cognitive development and develops intervention strategies for caregivers of young children.

Zhongyu Wei is a doctoral student in the Human Development, Learning and Teaching program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is interested in how the early home environment, particularly parent-child language interactions, shapes children’s language and cognitive development. Zhongyu holds a B.A. in linguistics and economics from Tsinghua University and an Ed.M. in international education policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Lauren Schilling is is a doctoral student in the Human Development, Learning and Teaching program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She received a B.A. in Psychology and Education Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and taught preschool in Waunakee, Wisconsin. Lauren is interested in how children’s home and school language environments support their word learning and print recognition. She is also interested in the role of embodied cognition in language and literacy development and how it may be leveraged in instruction. She hopes to enhance literacy outcomes by drawing on theory and children’s lived experiences.

Iris Jeffries is a doctoral student interested in adult-child interactions, early childhood language and cognitive development, and the unique context of rural regions. Prior to pursuing the Ph.D. in Human Development, Learning, and Teaching, she taught Spanish at Harvard University and worked as a lab manager in the Bonawitz CoCoDev Lab as well as research assistant in the Rowe Lab and Schmitt Lab. She received a B.A. from the University of Michigan and a master’s in Education Policy and Management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, which led her to serve as a Teach For America corps member in Appalachia and teacher in the Cambridge Public Schools. She conducted research for Teach For All and the Tennessee Department of Education.

Alyssa Guillu is a doctoral student and NSF-GRFP Fellow at Harvard University in the Human Development, Learning, and Teaching program. Alyssa’s work bridges observational and experimental methods to investigate how features of children’s everyday learning environments shape early language and literacy development. Before joining the Rowe Lab, Alyssa was a lab manager for Dr. Casey Lew-Williams at Princeton University and received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Chicago.

Jeeye Ma is a PhD student at Harvard University in the Human Development, Learning, and Teaching program. Her research focuses on the association between parental language input—including both L1 and non-native input—and immigrant children’s language development. She is particularly interested in family language policy in immigrant families, how it influences patterns of language input and parent–child interaction, and how these processes contribute to children’s language development. Prior to joining Harvard, she examined the linguistic environment of Korean multicultural families and its influence on children’s developmental outcomes. She also contributed to a variety of research projects, including the development of educational books to improve elementary school students’ literacy, examining the role of bilingual mentors in supporting immigrant children’s adjustment to daycare centers, and a national project on developing reading assessment tools for children with disabilities. Jeeye holds a bachelor’s degree in Linguistics and Business Administration and a master’s degree in Child Development and Family Studies from Seoul National University. She also holds a Korean Language Teacher Certificate.

Lizzie Baird is an early childhood educator with a decade of experience serving in elementary school classrooms. She graduated with an Ed.M. in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard in 2020 where she was a fellow with the Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative. Lizzie earned a B.A. in sociology from Bates College in 2014. In the Rowe Lab, she assists with intervention curriculum writing and training focused on parents and caregivers of young children.

Peju Bobbett (she/her) is currently a post graduate research fellow in the Rowe lab. She graduated from Wheaton College with a B.A. in International Relations and Spanish, holds her Ed.M. in Human Development and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and plans to pursue her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. Her work as a research assistant focuses on gestures with the learning of mathematical concepts by children. She has long been interested in the emergence of racial literacy in childhood and its impact on the development of ethnic-racial minoritized youth. Her research aims to promote social justice and healing. Peju also works as a research assistant in the Lab for Youth Mental Health (John R. Weisz, Ph.D.) at Harvard University on Project SMILE, a meta-analysis, examining the effectiveness of school-based interventions for youth with elevated mental health symptoms.

Shana Lee is a master’s student in the Human Development and Education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She earned her B.S. in Child Studies and Multilingual and Multicultural Studies from Vanderbilt University in May 2026. Her research interests include children’s language and literacy development and how families and educators can work together to support learning. She is currently working on the Families Count study in the Rowe Lab.

Yijing Chen is a research assistant at the Rowe Lab. She earned her master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research broadly examines children’s language and literacy development, with particular interests in evidence-based interventions for children with difficulties and emergent bilinguals across home and school contexts. She is also interested in the design and evaluation of technology-supported interventions that promote children’s language and literacy development. Prior to HGSE, Yijing earned a B.A. in English Language and Literature from Zhejiang University, where she studied second-language learning and technology-integrated language intervention.

Lewisa Zhang is a research assistant at the Rowe Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is interested in how bilingual and bicultural caregiving environments shape children’s early language and cognitive development. Lewisa holds a B.S. in Cognitive Studies and Child Development from Vanderbilt University, where her honors thesis examined infant object exploration across the crawling-to-walking transition.

Alisha Zhu is a Research Assistant in the Rowe Lab and a master’s student in Human Development and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research interests include parent-child interactions, the home language environment, and parental beliefs. Before joining the Rowe Lab, Alisha earned her B.A. in Psychology from New York University and worked as a research assistant in multiple labs at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, where she contributed to projects on early relational health, parenting, and community-based interventions that promote children's language development.