Dr. Eva Shivers, Assistant Professor currently in her third year in Applied Developmental Psychology, Department of Psychology in Education has already garnered respect and recognition for her important research in the education and development of low-income children, children of color, and in the effects of caregiver-attachment relationships in kith and kin childcare.
Prior to her arrival at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Shivers earned her Master's and Doctoral Degrees in Psychological Studies at UCLA. She wrote her Master's Thesis on African American mothers and their experiences with quality childcare as they transition from welfare to work, and followed up that insightful piece with her dissertation on provider-child attachment relationships in kith and kin childcare. Dr. Shivers has selflessly devoted herself to improving education and childcare for
low-income families ever since. She has written or presented over thirty publications in the last five years alone. The most impressive thing about Dr. Shivers' research, however, is not its quantity, but its quality. Her hard work and deft expertise have not gone unnoticed: Since the year 2000, she has been a Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh's Office of the Provost, the National Institute of Mental Health, and most recently, she became a National Training Institute Solnit Fellow at Zero to Three, a program
designed to support the development of young children and their families.
Dr. Shiver's specific project at Zero to Three is called Where the Children Are: Examining Policies and Practice in Family, Friend and Neighbor Child Care. With it, she hopes to help close the disparities in academic outcomes between African American children and white children by providing outreach to kith and kin childcare providers in the Hill District. Strategies involve creating partnerships for implementation, identifying community resources, and exploring the “best fit” for models of
outreach and support.
In tandem with her fervor for research, Dr. Shivers is also a valued member of the academic community, teaching courses in the areas of early childhood education and development. One student best summarized her poise and skill as an educator, asserting that Dr. Shivers “…is extremely helpful, very clear, and she loves what she teaches.”
