E. Mark Cummings

Dr. E. Mark Cummings is the William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families Professor of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame, and previously was the Notre Dame Endowed Chair in Psychology. Dr. Cummings’ work focuses on relations between adaptive and maladaptive family processes and development. He is interested in relations between family and community contexts and children’s development between early childhood and later adolescence, guided by the Emotional Security Theory.

A recent direction is the development and testing of prevention programs designed to improve family functioning, especially the quality of interparental and parent-child relationships, and children’s adjustment and well-being in high-risk US samples and international samples of families exposed to community violence.

He has authored several books and monographs and has published over 250 peer-reviewed articles and over 50 book chapters. He has also served on the editorial boards of numerous journals and as a regular and ad hoc reviewer for NIH IRG panels. Dr. Cummings is the Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator of numerous NICHD and NIMH-funded research programs examining prospective, longitudinal relations between conflict, family processes and development in childhood and adolescence, including international contexts and cultures, including basic and intervention research on political violence, armed conflict, and child and family adjustment.

He is an American Psychological Association and American Psychological Society Fellow, President-Elect of American Psychological Association, Division 7 (Developmental Psychology), and a recipient of Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society, American Psychological Association; the Mentoring Award in Developmental Psychology, American Psychological Association, the Bowlby-Ainsworth Award, and the Reuben Hill Research and Theory Award, National Council on Family Relations as well as the University of Notre Dame’s James A. Burns, C.S.C., Graduate School Award for Excellence in Graduate Education, and the Research Achievement Award.