Seth D. Pollak

Seth Pollak has made seminal contributions to identifying the life-long impact of early experience, particularly stress and adverse experience, on children's emotional development and wellbeing. Focusing on typically-developing children as well as vulnerable children who have been subjected to severe neglect or maltreatment, he has identified mechanisms underlying emotion at the behavioral, hormonal, neural and genetic levels. Pollak's work, which has attracted researchers across disciplines to study vulnerable children, has important implications for childrearing, education, health, public welfare policies, and prevention and intervention programs. His findings have consistently advanced basic science and translational science at the neural, behavioral and social policy levels.