Theresa Caputo
Project Director
New Jersey Professional Development
Center for Early Child Care and Education

Dina Castro
Scientist, FPG Child Development Institute
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Research Interests: Early childhood education for dual language learners; second language acquisition in young children; program policies and teacher practices related to educating young Latino children and families; addressing diversity in early childhood education; family involvement in early education and intervention.

Dr. Castro is principal investigator (with Dr. Virginia Buysse) for a project funded by the U.S. Dept. of Education, Institute of Education Science, to develop and evaluate an intervention for promoting early language and literacy development of preschool Latino English language learners. She served as principal investigator in the New Voices / Nuevas Voces project funded by the U.S. Dept. of Education to develop and field test a professional development program on cultural and linguistic diversity for early childhood professionals. Dr. Castro co-directed another project funded by the U.S. Dept. of Education to conduct a national study of policies and practices in early care and education programs to address the needs of Latino children and families.

Sheila C. Cosminsky
Associate, Center for Children and Childhood Studies Rutgers University

Research Interests: Child health, nutrition, and medical practices in third world societies. 

Sheila Cosminsky has been a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, Department of Medicine, and has conduced research on maternal and child health in Belize, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Guatemala and Japan with grant support from the Kapnek Charitable Trust and the National Institutes of Health. She is currently writing up her field research about midwives and medicalization on a Guatemalan plantation and is co-PI on a pilot study for a larger collaborative project on Health of Migrant Children in Southern New Jersey.