The Bucharest Early Intervention Project
Charles A. Nelson, III, Ph.D. Professor of Pediatrics, Neuroscience, and Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School; additionally, he is the Director of Research in the Division of Developmental Medicine and holds the Richard David Scott Chair of Pediatric Developmental Medicine Research at Children’s Hospital Boston. He has been inducted as a Fellow by the American Psychological Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences; Dr. Nelson has also received an honorary doctorate from Bucharest University. Recognized internationally as a leader in the field of developmental cognitive neuroscience, Dr. Nelson has achieved numerous breakthroughs in broadening scientific understanding of brain and behavioral development during infancy and childhood. Over the last two decades, Dr. Nelson has focused his research efforts on the development and neural bases of memory; recognition and processing of objects, faces, and emotion; and neural plasticity. He studies both typically developing children and children at risk for neurodevelopmental disorders, particularly autism.
Nathan A. Fox, Ph.D.
Nathan A. Fox, Ph.D. is a Distinguished University Professor of Human Development at the University of Maryland College Park. His research focuses on the biological bases of social and emotional development of infants and young children and he developed methods for assessing brain activity in infants and young children during tasks designed to elicit a range of emotions. Dr. Fox was awarded a MERIT award from the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development for excellence of his research program. He is currently an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Behavioral Development, on the executive board of the NIH Toolbox, and is a member of the National Scientific Council for the Developing Child. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Psychological Society.
Charles H. Zeanah, Jr., M.D.
Charles H. Zeanah, Jr., M.D. is Sellars-Polchow Professor of Psychiatry, Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, and Vice-Chair for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans. He is also Executive Director of the Institute for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health at Tulane. Dr. Zeanah has a longstanding interest in infant mental health, and his research and clinical interests concern the effects of abuse and serious deprivation on young children, parent-child attachment, psychopathology in early childhood, and infant-parent relationships.
Charles A. Nelson, III, Ph.D.
Principal Investigators of the BEIP
BEIP Research Team
Anca Radulescu, Ph.D.
Florin Tibu, Ph.D.
Alexandra Cercel, M.A.
Carmen Iuga
Mariana Mitu, M.A.
Anca Gilda Radulescu has a Ph. D. in Clinical Psychology from Bucharest University. Dr. Radulescu is a Child Clinical Psychologist with interests in the effects of social environment on behavioral development in children and adolescents. She has 15 years experience working in the field of developmental psychology, and has been working in the Bucharest Early Intervention Project since it began. Currently, she specializes in forensic developmental psychology, being involved in a two years training program. Currently, she is involved in a two year forensic developmental psychology training program.
Florin Tibu, Ph.D. is a Research Psychologist who graduated in 2001 with a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Iasi. After one year of working with the National Institute for Sports Research in Bucharest, he moved to the UK and completed a postgraduate program in Applied Psychology at Liverpool Hope University. In 2003, Florin returned to Bucharest and became a Research Assistant in the BEIP lab, where his main responsibility was to administer the child IQ test and the parent psychiatric interview when the study participants were 4-5 years of age. In 2007, Florin secured a studentship, which allowed him to go back to the UK to pursue his Ph.D. in Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Manchester. Supervised by Professors Jonathan Hill and Andrew Pickles, Florin expanded his research interests to include the study of behavior and some of its physiological correlates in newborns and infants in the context of prenatal exposure to stress. Florin rejoined the BEIP lab team in 2011 as a Research Fellow and has since been involved with collecting and analyzing the data at age 12 years, as well as planning the assessments for the forthcoming wave at 16 years. His general research interest is in early influences on infant and child development, with emphases on behavioral and cognitive development, physiology, and mental health.
Alexandra Cercel is a Research Assistant in the BEIP laboratory in Bucharest. She has a bachelor and a master’s degree in Psychology from the University of Bucharest. Alexandra has a strong interest in developmental psychology, as well as in clinical psychology- being a certified independent psychotherapist and having worked extensively with children with autism.
Mariana Mitu graduated with a B.A. in 2008 and a M.A. in 2010 in Probation and Protection of Victims from Bucharest University’s Department of Sociology and Social Work.. She is currently training at one of Bucharest’s higher education institutions’ law school. She is due to graduate in July 2014. Mariana joined the BEIP in 2012 as a Social Worker. Her main responsibilities in the project are to maintain contact with the BEIP participants and families, schedule them for lab assessments, collaborate with the private and government Child Protection institutions and to keep all databases up-to-date. She also administers some of the questionnaires to the parents/caregivers. She is a founding member of the association “Youth for Justice” (since 2009), which advocates for the rights of criminals towards social and professional reinsertion. Mariana has been a member of the Romanian College of Social Workers since 2009. She also has several contracts with a Civil Professional Social Work Association in which she provides case management services for children living in institutions or foster families.
Ileana Carmen Iuga graduated in 2003 from the Departament of Sociology and Social Work of Bucharest University, specializing in Social Work for Children and Families. She has been a Social Worker in the BEIP since 2008. Her main responsabilities within the BEIP project are working with databases, monitoring the children in the study, enrolling subjects and maintaining contact with families, collaborating with child protection institutions, and administering some of the study procedures.She has been a member of the Romanian College of Social Workers since 2007. During 1998 - 2004 she worked as a Social Worker within the General Direction of Social Work and Child Protection of Bucharest’s sectors 1 and 5, and then, between 2005 and 2007, she worked on a similar position for a humanitarian association and also for the Direction of Social Work Buftea. Starting 2008 she has been a close collaborator of a Civil Professional Society for Social Work where she coordinates a team of social workers and case managers.
Iuliana Dobre
Iuliana became involved with the BEIP in 2001 as an administrative assistant. Her role was to provide support to the research team, welcome participating families and children to the research lab and assist the project accountant with preparation and maintenance of financial records and reports. Since 2004, she has served as the Accounts Assistant and manages all financial and administrative operations in the lab.
