Adele Diamond

Diamond grew up in Brooklyn and Queens and attended public schools (PS 165, Parsons Junior High, and John Bowne High School). She graduated from John Bowne High School as Valedictorian.{{cite web |title=The publicly posted curriculum vitae of Adele Diamond |last=Diamond |first=A. |url=http://www.devcogneuro.com/AdeleDiamond.html }}

She attended Swarthmore College on a four-year Swarthmore National Scholarship and graduated in 1975, majoring in Sociology-Anthropology and Psychology.{{cite book |last1=Diamond |first1=A. |editor1-last=Subotnik |editor1-first=R. F.|editor2-last=Robinson |editor2-first=A.|editor3-last=Callahan |editor3-first=C. M. |editor4-last=Gubbins |editor4-first=E. J.|title= Malleable Minds: Translating Insights from Psychology and Neuroscience to Gifted Education|publisher=The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, U. of Conn.|location=Storrs, CT |year=2012|pages=55–84 |chapter=How I came full circle from the social end of psychology, to neuroscience, and back again, in an effort to understand the development of cognitive control|chapter-url=http://www.devcogneuro.com/Publications/adele_s_chapter_malleable_minds_2012.pdf |name-list-style=amp}} She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with the highest honor in the course program of study. While still at Swarthmore, in 1972, she attended the London School of Economics.

Diamond did her PhD graduate work at Harvard University (graduating in 1983), with a four-year NSF Graduate Fellowship and a three-year Danforth Graduate Fellowship.

Although officially a PhD candidate in Psychology, she spent her first four years of graduate school working primarily in anthropology and sociology. at the time the department was formally the Department of Psychology and Social Relations, which attempted to maintain interdisciplinary relationships between psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists.{{Cite web|title=Department of Social Relations, Harvard University {{!}} People {{!}} The Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments|url=http://waywiser.rc.fas.harvard.edu/people/8473/department-of-social-relations-harvard-university;jsessionid=2CA609F3E34065ED0067230657BCA1E9|access-date=2021-11-19|website=waywiser.rc.fas.harvard.edu|language=en}}{{Cite journal|last=Johnston|first=Barry V.|date=1998|title=The contemporary crisis and the social relations department at Harvard: A case study in hegemony and disintegration.|url=https://rdcu.be/cBFeZ|journal=The American Sociologist|volume=29|issue=3 |pages=26–42|doi=10.1007/s12108-998-1003-1 |s2cid=144418324 |url-access=subscription}} At that time, Harvard had an NIMH-funded Pre-doctoral Training Program in Cross-Cultural Psychological Research and the program awarded Diamond three years of funding for her dissertation: one year to prepare to go into the field, one year to go anywhere in the world to do the research (she chose the South Pacific), and one year to write up the results. Her thesis topic was "Is the need to be master of your fate intrinsically human or a product of Western culture?" However, she didn't think she was coming up with a good way to study it and that the famous people advising her were not either. They seemed not to be concerned, saying, "Don't worry. You do great work." Not wanting to go and do poor science, Diamond abandoned the topic and returned the money for Years 2 and 3.

Having given up her initial thesis topic, she returned to a question that Jerome Kagan had posed in Diamond's first year in graduate school: "If infants all over the world show the same cognitive changes at roughly the same time, those changes cannot be due entirely to learning or experience, because their experiences are too diverse; there must be a maturational component; what might that maturational component be?" To answer that question, Diamond turned to neuroscience.

Diamond hypothesized that maturational changes in the brain's prefrontal cortex made possible the impressive cognitive advances seen between 6 and 12 months of age. At that time no one was studying the prefrontal cortex or any topic in cognitive neuroscience in the Harvard Psychology Department. Diamond learned from books on her own and was granted permission to add Nelson Butters from the Boston VA (who had published widely on the anatomy and functions of prefrontal cortex) to her thesis committee.

To get hard evidence on the brain to support her hypothesis, Diamond went to Yale University School of Medicine to work with Patricia Goldman-Rakic. That work was supported by Sloan and NIMH Postdoctoral Fellowship Awards.

Diamond organized a conference, “The Development and Neural Basis of Higher Cognitive Functions,” that brought together developmental psychologists, neuroscientists, and cognitive scientists who were using the same behavioral paradigms but were unaware of that fact. The conference and resulting book served to jumpstart many research collaborations and the nascent field of developmental cognitive neuroscience.{{cite book |last1=Diamond |first1=A. |title= The development and neural bases of higher cognitive functions|publisher=Academy of Sciences | location=New York, NY|year=1990|pages=433–472 }}

Diamond's team discovered a long-lasting visual deficit if children with phenylketonuria are not started on a low-phenylalanine diet within days of birth (the norm had been to start them within two weeks of birth).{{cite journal|last=Diamond|first=A. |title= Recent research findings on the effects of age at diet initiation on the visual system|journal=Invited Presentation at the NIH Consensus Development Conference on "Phenylketonuria (PKU): Screening and Management," Bethesda, MD|year=2000}}

Her 2005 paper on the fundamental neurobiological and clinical differences between the inattentive-type ADHD and those ADHD types in which hyperactivity is present was titled "BADD (ADHD without hyperactivity), a neurobiologically and behaviorally distinct disorder from ADHD (with hyperactivity)".{{cite journal|last=Diamond|first=A.|title= BADD (ADHD without hyperactivity), a neurobiologically and behaviorally distinct disorder from ADHD (with hyperactivity)|journal=Development and Psychopathology|year=2005|volume=17|issue=3|pages=807–825|doi=10.1017/S0954579405050388|pmc=1474811|pmid=16262993}}

Much of Diamond's work has started with the premise that even though a child may appear incapable of doing or understanding something, if the question is posed differently or the concept taught in new ways, the child can succeed. Diamond illustrated this approach first with infants' understanding of the concept of contiguity,{{cite journal|last1=Diamond|first1=A. |last2=Gilbert|first2=J.|title= Development as progressive inhibitory control of action: Retrieval of a contiguous object|journal=Cognitive Development|year=1989|volume=4|issue=3 |pages=223–249|doi=10.1016/0885-2014(89)90007-5}}{{cite journal|last1=Diamond|first1=A. |last2=Lee|first2=E.-Y.|title= Inability of 5-month-old infants to retrieve a contiguous object: A failure of conceptual understanding or of control of action?|journal=Child Development|year=2000|volume=71|issue=6 |pages=1477–1494|doi=10.1111/1467-8624.00241|pmid=11194250 |doi-access=free}} then with their ability to grasp abstract concepts,{{cite journal|last1=Diamond|first1=A. |last2=Churchland|first2=A.|last3=Cruess|first3=L.|last4=Kirkham|first4=N.|title= Early developments in the ability to understand the relation between stimulus and reward|journal=Developmental Psychology|year=1999|volume=35|issue=6 |pages=1507–1517|doi=10.1037/0012-1649.35.6.1507|pmid=10563738 }}{{cite journal|last1=Diamond|first1=A.|last2=Lee|first2=E.-Y.|last3=Hayden|first3=M.|title= Early success in using the relation between stimulus and reward to deduce an abstract rule: Perceived physical connectedness is key|journal=Developmental Psychology|year=2003|volume=39|issue=5|pages=825–847|doi=10.1037/0012-1649.39.5.825|pmid=12952397}}{{cite journal|last=Diamond|first=A. |title= Bootstrapping conceptual deduction using physical connection: Rethinking frontal cortex|journal=Trends in Cognitive Sciences|year=2006|volume=10|issue=5 |pages=212–2187|doi=10.1016/j.tics.2006.03.003|pmid=16584909 |pmc=1513683}} and next with children's ability to succeed on a Stroop-like task requiring memory and inhibition.{{cite journal|last1=Diamond|first1=A. |last2=Kirkham|first2=N.Z.|last3=Amsod|first3=D.T.|title= Conditions under which young children CAN hold two rules in mind and inhibit a prepotent response|journal= Developmental Psychology|year=2002|volume=38|issue=3 |pages=352–3627|doi=10.1037/0012-1649.38.3.352|pmid=12005379 }}{{cite journal|last1=Simpson|first1=A.|last2=Riggs|first2=K.J. |last3=Beck|first3=S.R.|last4=Gorniak|first4=S.L.|last5=Wu|first5=Y.|last6=Abbott|first6=D.|title= Refining the understanding of inhibitory processes: How response prepotency is created and overcome|journal= Developmental Science|year=2012|volume=15|issue=1|pages=62–73|doi=10.1111/j.1467-7687.2011.01105.x|pmid=22251293|pmc=3405835}}{{cite journal|last1=Ling|first1=D.S.|last2=Wong|first2=C.D. |last3=Diamond|first3=A.|title= Do children need reminders on the Day-Night task, or simply some way to prevent them from responding too quickly? |journal= Cognitive Development|year=2016|volume=37|pages=67–72|doi=10.1016/j.cogdev.2015.10.003|pmid=26949287|pmc=4776648}}

In 2009, Diamond was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada,{{cite journal|title= UBC faculty honoured by Royal Society |journal= UBC News|date=2009-09-23|url=https://news.ubc.ca/2009/09/23/ubc-faculty-honoured-by-royal-society/}} and she received a YWCA Woman of Distinction Award (recognized nationally as an important award for women).{{cite journal|last=Hill|first=M.F.|title= Awards honour women of distinction |journal= The Vancouver Sun|date=2009-06-04|pages=A11 }}

In 2014, Diamond received the Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contributions to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society from the American Psychological Association,{{Cite web|url=https://www.apadivisions.org/division-7/awards/bronfenbrenner?tab=3|title=Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology}} and she was recognized as one of the 15 most influential neuroscientists alive today.{{Cite web|url=https://www.onlinepsychologydegree.info/30-most-influential-neuroscientists-alive-today/|title=www.onlinepsychologydegree.info/30-most-influential-neuroscientists-alive-today}}

In 2015, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev conferred an honorary doctorate (Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa) on Diamond.{{cite web |title=BGU to Recognize Outstanding Scientists and Supporters with Honorary Doctorates |year=2015 |url=http://in.bgu.ac.il/en/Pages/news/hondoc_bog2015.aspx }}

In 2019, Diamond's impact ranked in top 0.01% of scientists.{{Citation | vauthors=((Ioannidis, J. P. A.)), ((Baas, J.)), ((Klavans, R.)), ((Boyack, K. W.)) | year=2019 | title=A standardized citation metrics author database annotated for scientific field | journal=PLOS Biology | volume=17 | issue=8 | pages=e3000384 | publisher=Public Library of Science (PLoS) | doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000384 | doi-access=free | pmid=31404057 | pmc=6699798 }}

In 2024, she received an Honorary Doctor of Science Degree honoris causa from the University of Cambridge in the UK.Graces to be submitted to the Regent House at a congregation on 23 March 2024. (2024, March 20). Cambridge University Reporter. Retrieved March 20, 2024, from https://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2023-24/weekly/6735/section4.shtml#heading2-24

She has held a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair for more than ten years.{{cite journal|title= Global Brainpower Brought to UBC with Federal Research Funding |journal= UBC News|date=2004-11-12|url=https://news.ubc.ca/2004/11/12/archive-media-releases-2004-mr-04-124/}}

Diamond's courses have received numerous positive reviews throughout her career.{{cite web |title=Comments-UPennC |url=http://www.devcogneuro.com/Publications/Feedback_from_UPenn_students.pdf }}{{cite web |title=Comments-UBC |url=http://www.devcogneuro.com/Publications/feedback_and_comments.pdf }} She has almost 600 invited addresses, including hundreds of keynote addresses and over 30 named lectures.{{cite web |title=Invited Talks and Conference Presentations |url=http://www.devcogneuro.com/AdeleDiamond.html#Talks }} She has spoken in North America and abroad (including in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Germany, India, Indonesia [Bali & Java], Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, and the UK [England, Scotland, and Wales]).

Diamond has authored or co-authored about a hundred papers on her research work. Below are selected publications:

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• Diamond, A. (1991). Neuropsychological insights into the meaning of object concept development. In S. Carey & R. Gelman (Eds.), The epigenesis of mind: Essays on biology and knowledge. (pp. 67–110). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Diamond, A. (2001). A model system for studying the role of dopamine in prefrontal cortex during early development in humans. In C. Nelson & M. Luciana (Eds.), Handbook of developmental cognitive neuroscience. (pp. 433–472). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• {{cite journal | last1 = Diamond | first1 = A | year = 2005 | title = ADD (ADHD without hyperactivity), a neurobiologically and behaviorally distinct disorder from ADHD (with hyperactivity) | journal = Development and Psychopathology | volume = 17 | issue = 3 | pages = 807–825 | doi=10.1017/s0954579405050388 | pmid=16262993 | pmc=1474811}}
• {{cite journal | last1 = Davidson | first1 = M.C. | last2 = Amso | first2 = D. | last3 = Anderson | first3 = L.C. | last4 = Diamond | first4 = A. | year = 2006 | title = Development of cognitive control and executive functions from 4–13 years: Evidence from manipulations of memory, inhibition, and task switching | journal = Neuropsychologia | volume = 44 | issue = 11| pages = 2037–2078 | doi=10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2006.02.006 | pmid=16580701 | pmc=1513793}}
• {{cite journal | last1 = Diamond | first1 = A. | last2 = Barnett | first2 = W.S. | last3 = Thomas | first3 = J. | last4 = Munro | first4 = S. | year = 2007 | title = Preschool program improves cognitive control | journal = Science | volume = 318 | issue = 5855 | pages = 1387–1388 | doi=10.1126/science.1151148 | pmid=18048670 | pmc=2174918}}
• {{cite journal | last1 = Diamond | first1 = A. | last2 = Lee | first2 = K. | year = 2011 | title = Interventions shown to aid executive function development in children 4–12 years old | journal = Science | volume = 333 | issue = 6045| pages = 959–964 | doi=10.1126/science.1204529 | pmid=21852486 | pmc=3159917| bibcode = 2011Sci...333..959D }}
• {{cite journal | last1 = Diamond | first1 = A | year = 2013 | title = Executive functions | journal = Annual Review of Psychology | volume = 64 | pages = 135–168 | doi=10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143750 | pmid=23020641 | pmc=4084861}}
• {{cite journal | last1 = Schonert-Reichl | first1 = K. A. | last2 = Oberle | first2 = E. | last3 = Diamond | first3 = A. | last4 = Lawlor | first4 = M. S. | last5 = Abbott | first5 = D. | last6 = Thompson | first6 = K. | last7 = Oberlander | first7 = T.F. | year = 2015 | title = Enhancing cognitive and social – emotional development through a simple-to-administer mindfulness-based school program for elementary school children: A randomized controlled trial | journal = Developmental Psychology | volume = 51 | issue = 1| pages = 52–66 | doi=10.1037/a0038454| pmid = 25546595 | pmc = 4323355 }} (Special Section on Mindfulness and Compassion in Human Development)

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• {{cite journal | last1 = Diamond | first1 = A | year = 2015 | title = Research that helps us move closer to a world where each child thrives | journal = Research in Human Development | volume = 12 | issue = 3–4| pages = 288–294 | doi=10.1080/15427609.2015.1068034| pmid = 26635510 | pmc = 4666319 }}
• {{cite journal | last1 = Ling | first1 = D. S. | last2 = Wong | first2 = C. D. | last3 = Diamond | first3 = A. | year = 2016 | title = Do children need reminders on the Day-Night task, or simply some way to prevent them from responding too quickly? | journal = Cognitive Development | volume = 37 | pages = 67–72 | doi=10.1016/j.cogdev.2015.10.003| pmid = 26949287 | pmc = 4776648 }}
• {{cite journal | last1 = Diamond | first1 = A. | last2 = Ling | first2 = D. S. | year = 2016 | title = Conclusions about interventions, programs, and approaches for improving executive functions that appear justified and those that, despite much hype, do not | journal = Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience | volume = 18 | pages = 34–48 | doi=10.1016/j.dcn.2015.11.005 | pmid=26749076 | pmc=5108631}}
• {{cite journal | last1 = Park | first1 = M. | last2 = Brain | first2 = U. | last3 = Grunau | first3 = R. E. | last4 = Diamond | first4 = A. | last5 = Oberlander | first5 = T. F. | year = 2018 | title = Maternal depression trajectories from pregnancy to 3 years postpartum are associated with children's behavior and executive functions at 3 and 6 years | journal = Archives of Women's Mental Health | volume = 21 | issue = 3| pages = 353–363 | doi=10.1007/s00737-017-0803-0| pmid = 29340801 | s2cid = 6288640 }}
• {{cite journal | last1 = Diamond | first1 = A. | last2 = Ling | first2 = D. S. | year = 2019 | title = Aerobic-exercise and resistance-training interventions have been among the least effective ways to improve executive functions of any method tried thus far | journal = Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience | volume = 37 | pages = 100572 | doi = 10.1016/j.dcn.2018.05.001 | pmid = 29909061 | pmc = 6969311 }}
• {{cite journal | last1 = Diamond | first1 = A | last2 = Lee | first2 = C. | last3 = Senften | first3 = P. | last4 = Lam | first4 = A. | last5 = Abbott | first5 = D. | year = 2019 | title = Randomized control trial of Tools of the Mind: Marked benefits to kindergarten children and their teachers | journal = PLOS ONE | volume = 14 | issue = 9| pages = e0222447 | doi = 10.1371/journal.pone.0222447 | pmid = 31527919 | doi-access = free | pmc = 6748407 | bibcode = 2019PLoSO..1422447D }}

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Category:American women psychologists

Category:American women neuroscientists

Category:American neuroscientists

Category:Canadian cognitive neuroscientists

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Category:Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni

Category:Swarthmore College alumni

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:Living people

Category:Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder researchers

Category:American Jews

Category:Scientists from New York City

Category:Academics from New York (state)

Category:21st-century American women scientists

Category:Academic staff of the University of British Columbia Faculty of Science

Category:21st-century American psychologists