Adele Diamond facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Adele Diamond
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| Born |
Adele Dorothy Diamond
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| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | |
| Spouse(s) | Donald Druin |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Developmental cognitive neuroscience |
| Institutions | University of British Columbia |
| Thesis | Behavior changes between 6 to 12 months of age: what can they tell us about how the mind of the infant is changing? (1983) |
| Doctoral advisor | Jerome Kagan |
Adele Diamond is a well-known professor of neuroscience at the University of British Columbia. She is a leading expert in a field called developmental cognitive neuroscience. This field studies how our brains grow and how we learn to think, especially when we are children.
Professor Diamond looks at how things like our genes and our environment affect our "executive functions." These are important skills like focusing, remembering, and solving problems. Her work has helped improve treatments for conditions like phenylketonuria (PKU) and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It has also changed how we teach young children.
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Early Life and School Days
Adele Diamond grew up in New York City, in areas called Brooklyn and Queens. She went to public schools there and was the top student when she graduated from John Bowne High School.
College and University Studies
She then went to Swarthmore College on a special scholarship. She studied Sociology-Anthropology and Psychology and graduated with top honors in 1975. During her time at Swarthmore, she also studied at the London School of Economics in 1972.
After college, Diamond went to Harvard University for her PhD. She received special fellowships to help pay for her studies. Even though she was officially studying Psychology, she spent her first few years learning about anthropology and sociology.
A New Path in Research
Adele Diamond first planned to study if the need to control your own life was something everyone felt or if it was just a Western idea. But she realized it was hard to study this topic well. So, she decided to change her research focus.
She became interested in a question her professor, Jerome Kagan, had asked: If babies all over the world develop similar thinking skills at the same age, it can't just be from what they learn. Their brains must be growing in a similar way. What part of the brain might be responsible for this?
To answer this, Diamond started studying neuroscience, which is the study of the brain. She thought that changes in the brain's prefrontal cortex (the front part of the brain) helped babies make big thinking leaps between 6 and 12 months old. At that time, no one at Harvard was studying this. She learned a lot on her own and worked with other experts to get evidence from the brain to support her ideas.
Important Discoveries
Adele Diamond helped start the field of developmental cognitive neuroscience. She organized a big meeting that brought together different scientists who were all studying similar things but didn't know it. This meeting helped them work together and led to many new research projects.
Helping Children with PKU
Her team made an important discovery about children with phenylketonuria (PKU). This is a condition where the body can't break down a certain substance. They found that if children with PKU didn't start a special diet within a few days of birth, they could have lasting vision problems. Before this, doctors thought starting the diet within two weeks was fine. Her research showed that starting it even sooner was much better.
Understanding ADHD
In 2005, Professor Diamond wrote a paper about different types of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She showed that ADHD where a child is mostly inattentive (often called "ADHD without hyperactivity") is different from ADHD where a child is also hyperactive. This helped doctors and parents better understand and treat these conditions.
Teaching and Learning
Much of Diamond's work shows that even if a child seems unable to do something, they might succeed if the task is presented differently. She showed this with how babies understand objects and how children can learn abstract ideas. She also showed how children can improve their memory and ability to stop themselves from doing something (inhibition) with new teaching methods.
Awards and Recognition
Adele Diamond has received many awards for her important work.
- In 2009, she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She also received a YWCA Woman of Distinction Award, which is a national award for women.
- In 2014, she received the Urie Bronfenbrenner Award from the American Psychological Association. This award recognized her lifelong contributions to developmental psychology. She was also named one of the 15 most influential neuroscientists alive.
- In 2015, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel gave her an honorary doctorate degree.
- In 2019, her research impact was ranked among the top 0.01% of scientists worldwide.
- In 2024, she received an Honorary Doctor of Science Degree from the University of Cambridge in the UK.
She has also been a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair for over ten years, which is a very high honor for researchers in Canada.
Teacher and Speaker
Professor Diamond is also a highly praised teacher. Her courses have received many positive reviews. She has given almost 600 invited talks, including hundreds of main speeches and over 30 special lectures. She has spoken all over the world, sharing her knowledge in many countries across North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.
Selected Publications
Adele Diamond has written or co-written about a hundred research papers. Here are a few examples:
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