Dana Suskind

Dana Suskind is co-director of the TMW Center for Early Learning and Public Health, professor of surgery and pediatrics, and director of the Pediatric Cochlear Implant Program at the University of Chicago. Suskind’s research concentrates on optimizing adult-child interactions to impact foundational brain development and prevent early cognitive disparities and their lifelong impact. Her work particularly focuses on preschool children in low socioeconomic-level households, with evidence-based interventions reaching over 5,000 families in Chicago and beyond. She is the author of Thirty Million Words: Building a Child’s Brain and Parent Nation: Unlocking Every Child's Potential, Fulfilling Society's Promise, which empowers parents to use developmental neuroscience to build a society that works for—not against—families.