Three faculty members at the University of Notre Dame have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). One of these is Darcia Narvaez, professor emerita of psychology and a faculty fellow at the Institute for Latino Studies.
She is being honored for her distinguished contributions illuminating typical and atypical development in terms of well-being, morality and sustainable wisdom. Narvaez examines how early life experience, the “evolved nest,” influences moral functioning and well-being in children and adults and integrates evolutionary, anthropological, neurobiological, clinical, developmental and education sciences in her work. Narvaez received the William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association and the inaugural Expanded Reason Award for research for her book Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture, and Wisdom.
Her most recent study, coauthored with doctoral student Mary Tarsha, is entitled "Effects of adverse childhood experience on physiological regulation are moderated by evolved developmental niche history"; it was published in the journal of Anxiety, Stress & Coping in October. The results were also highlighted in a recent Notre Dame News article.
The other fellows are Patricia L. Clark, the Rev. John Cardinal O’Hara, C.S.C., Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and associate vice president for research and director of the Biophysics Instrumentation Core Facility; and Michael Pfrender, professor of evolutionary and ecological genomics and director of Notre Dame’s Genomics and Bioinformatics Core Facility.
*Modified version of an article originally published by at news.nd.edu on January 26, 2022.