In 1994, the Life Course Center was renamed in recognition of Urie Bronfenbrenner's scholarship and leadership in linking basic research to social policy. Urie was the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Human Development and of Psychology at Cornell. He is widely regarded as one of the world's leading scholars in developmental psychology, child rearing, and in the interdisciplinary domain of his own creation: the ecology of human development.
Born in Moscow, Russia in 1917, Urie Bronfenbrenner came to the United States at the age of 6. After graduating from high school in Haverstraw, N.Y., he received a bachelors degree from Cornell University in 1938, where he completed a double major in Psychology and in Music. He then went on to graduate work in Developmental Psychology, completing an M.A. at Harvard followed by a Doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1942. The day after receiving his doctorate he was inducted into the Army, where he served as a psychologist in a variety of assignments in the Air Corps and the Office of Strategic Services. After completing officer training, he served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. Following demobilization and a two-year stint as an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, he joined the Cornell faculty in 1948, where he remained for the rest of his professional life. He died September 25, 2005.
From the very beginning of his scholarly work, Bronfenbrenner has pursued three mutually reinforcing themes: 1) developing theory and corresponding research designs at the frontiers of developmental science; 2) laying out the implications and applications of developmental theory and research for policy and practice; and 3) communicating - through articles, lectures, and discussions - the findings of developmental research to undergraduate students, the general public, and to decision-makers both in the private and public sector. Bronfenbrenner also played an active role in the design of developmental programs in the United States and elsewhere, including being one of the founders of Head Start.
His widely-published contributions won him honors and distinguished awards both at home and abroad. He held six honorary degrees, three of them from European universities. The most recent American award (1996), henceforth to be given annually in his name, is for "Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the service of Science and Society."
