SHARON LANDESMAN RAMEY, Ph.D.

Professor and Distinguished Research Scholar, Fralin Biomedical Research Institute
Research Professor, Virginia Tech Department of Psychology
Professor of Psychiatry, VTC School of Medicine

My research addresses three major areas of human development: (1) the contribution of early experience, starting even prior to conception and extending through the prenatal and early postnatal periods, to later health, social-emotional, and intellectual development (including the fields of behavioral teratology and early intervention research); (2) the development and testing of highly promising treatments for children with disabilities and at-risk conditions; and (3) how to improve the provision of health, education, and social services and strengthen natural community supports, to benefit children and families—the intersection between the new field of implementation science and public policy/public opinion.

I also have a longstanding interest in improving the rigor of social science tools; one area in which I have developed new tools concerns obtaining reliable and valid reports of young children’s subjective appraisals of their families, their schools, and their peers. I am interested in how these personal experiences (phenomenology) change over time and influence multiple decisions, behavior, and health (physical, mental, and social).

My current areas of funded research include: (i) interventions and statewide pre-kindergarten programs to improve teacher and child caregiver effectiveness in increasing young children’s school success; (ii) the role of maternal stress in altering maternal allostatic load, pregnancy outcome, and child outcomes, particularly among low-income, minority populations; (iii) strategies to reduce maternal, paternal, and child health disparities; (iv) pediatric neuromotor interventions for children with cerebral palsy; and (v) innovative, cross-study, longitudinal data analyses to identify common principles of human development as moderated by age, gender, context, and the availability of “responsive, individualized, and stimulating care and education.”

In addition, I am part of the multidisciplinary team at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute that has launched the Roanoke Brain Study under the direction of Dr. Read Montague. The Roanoke Brain Study is elucidating decision-making across the life course—childhood through old age, including exploring inter-generational influences and dynamic relationships among life experiences, health, education, income, and individual biological differences (using an epigenetics systems framework).