Education Professor Honored by American Educational Research Association

University of Oklahoma education professor Diane M. Horm, Ph.D., has been awarded the Distinguished Contribution to Research Award from the Early Education and Child Development Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association. This award is given annually and recognizes an individual who has contributed nationally and internationally to the field of early education and child development.

Horm is the George Kaiser Family Foundation Endowed Chair of Early Childhood Education and founding director of the Early Childhood Education Institute (ECEI) at OU-Tulsa. She is also an associate director of the OU Institute for Community and Society Transformation (ICAST).

“Under Horm’s innovative leadership, the ECEI has gone from an idea to a visible, viable research group employing more than 30 people, and engaging in cutting edge early childhood research, grants, and publications,” said Myae Han, past chair of the EE/CD SIG. “Perhaps the most important impact that Diane has had on the field of early education and child development has been through her mentorship of students and newer colleagues as well as her ability to collaborate with others in the field.”

Horm has led several applied research initiatives in early childhood education through the ECEI including program evaluation research in collaboration with Tulsa’s Educare programs and a large, multi-year study with colleagues from Georgetown and McGill Universities to investigate children’s development from Pre-K through grade 3. Horm was recognized during the AERA annual meeting in April 2023.

Read more about the award in the EE/CD newsletter.