Biography

Dr. Williamson is a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Andrew Meltzoff. Before coming to the Institute, she earned a Ph.D. in developmental psychology at Stanford University, working with Ellen Markman. Dr. Williamson's research focuses on young children's social learning, including what children learn from others and how they do so. Her research investigates how children learn behaviors, goals, and customs through observing others in their culture. Dr. Williamson considers imitation to be a flexible and adaptive learning mechanism that children use differently depending on the situation — sometimes copying what they see the expert do and sometimes employing their own cognitive solutions to solve a problem. Her work has implications for multicultural learning, and for the education of preschoolers.