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NPEN Advisors

A. Rae Simpson

A. Rae Simpson, Ph.D., is Program Director for Parenting Education and Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-director of MIT’s Center for Work, Family & Personal Life, where she develops and coordinates a broad range of work/life services and initiatives for the MIT community, many of which have won national recognition. Specializing in parenting issues, she is particularly known for her program of workshops, consultations, research reports, professional networks, and other resources in the parenting field.

A specialist in communication of research knowledge, Rae is currently gathering and analyzing recent studies of young adult development, highlighting the unique needs and characteristics of this particular age group and exploring implications for parents, employers, practitioners, universities, policymakers, and others.

As chief consultant to the Harvard Parenting Project at the Harvard School of Public Health, with funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Rae wrote and published two widely disseminated reports: Raising Teens: A Synthesis of Research and a Foundation for Action and The Role of the Mass Media in Parenting Education, available at http://hrweb.mit.edu/worklife/rpteens.html.

Rae has consulted on issues in parenting education, parenting and the media, adolescent and young adult development, and science communication to a wide range of local, national, and international organizations, including the World Health Organization, CBS Television, National Science Foundation, the United Nations, public television, and major advertising, publishing, and law firms. She is founding chair of the National Parenting Education Network (NPEN), as well as its regional counterpart, the Parenting Education Network of Massachusetts.

Rae received her Ph.D. in communication research from Stanford University and is the author (under her former name, Rae Goodell) of The Visible Scientists (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977), which explores the relationship between experts and the media, as well as numerous articles in such publications as The New York Times, Columbia Journalism Review, and The Washington Post.  

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