Jane Knitzer, EdD

Dr. Jane Knitzer is the executive director of the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP), whose mission is to promote research-informed policy to improve the lives of low-income children and families. She is also a clinical professor of population and family health at the Mailman School of Public Health. As a psychologist, Dr. Knitzer has focused her own research on improving public policies related to children’s mental health, child welfare, and early childhood. Her work on mental health includes the ground-breaking policy report, Unclaimed Children: The Failure of Public Responsibility to Children and Adolescents in Need of Mental Health Services. For many years she has been a leader in calling attention to the importance of addressing social and emotional issues in young children as well as improving broader early childhood policies.

Dr. Knitzer has been on the faculty at Cornell University, New York University, and Bank Street College of Education. She is a member of the New York State Governor’s Advisory Council on Children and a past president of Division 37, Child, Youth, and Family Services, of the American Psychological Association, and of the American Association of Orthopsychiatry. Among other awards, she was the first recipient of the Nicolas Hobbs Award for Distinguished Service in the Cause of Child Advocacy from the American Psychological Association. She has also served as a member of the Institute of Medicine’s recent Committee on Crossing the Chasm: Adaptation to Mental Health and Addictive Disorders.