James Todd
Post-Doctoral Research Associate
Florida International University – Department of Psychology
11200 SW 8th Street
Miami, FL 33199
Phone: 305-348-7367
Email: james.todd@fiu.edu
Education
Post-doc
Florida International University, Miami, FL
Developmental Psychology
Mentor: Dr. Lorraine E. Bahrick
2008 to present
Ph.D.
University of Toledo, Toledo, OH
Developmental Psychology
Chair: Dr. Peg Hull Smith
2007
M.A.
University of Toledo, Toledo, OH
Developmental Psychology,
Chair: Dr. Robert A. Haaf
2005
B.A.
Erskine College, Due West, SC
General Psychology
2002
Positions Held
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Infant Development Lab, Florida International University
2008 to present
Research Assistant
Program for Developmental Studies, University of Toledo
2002 to 2007
Professional Accomplishments
Journal Articles
Todd, J. T., & Smith, P. H. (2008). Twelve-month-olds’ understanding of prior actions and
final goals. Infant Behavior and Development, 31, 311-315.
Manuscripts under revision
Todd, J. T., & Dixon, W. E. (2007). Temperament moderates gaze-following in 11- and 14-montholds. Manuscript under revision.
Todd, J. T., & Smith, P. H. (2007). Maternal gesturing to 13- and 20-month-olds in a book-reading
task. Manuscript under revision.
Professional Presentations
Todd, J. T. (March, 2008). Twelve-month-olds’ understanding of prior actions and final goals.
Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the International Society for Infant
Studies, Vancouver, Canada.
Todd, J. T., & Dixon, W. E. (March, 2008). Temperament moderates responsiveness to joint
attentional bids at 11 and 14 months. Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the
International Society on Infant Studies, Vancouver, Canada.
Todd, J. T., & Dixon, W. E. (June, 2006). Temperament moderates gaze following in 11- and 14month- olds. Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the International Society for Infant
Studies, Kyoto, Japan.
Todd, J. T. (October, 2005). Is there a commonsense psychology in infancy? Poster presented at
the biennial meeting of the Cognitive Development Society, San Diego, CA.
Todd, J. T. (July, 2005). Is there a commonsense psychology in infancy? Presentation to the
Cultural Learning, Imitation, and Articraft Understanding Summer University course at
Central European University.
Shore, W. J., Hensler, B. S., Nelson, J., Carroll, C., Todd, J. T., & Szymanowski, K. L.
(October, 2005). Vocabulary size and strength of thematic relationships predict 20-montholds’ word comprehension. Poster presented at the biennial meeting for Cognitive
Development Society, San Diego, CA.
Smith, P. H., Fulkerson, A. L., Todd, J. T. (April, 2005). The impact of mother’s expressive
labeling on children’s expressive vocabulary at 13 and 20 months of age. Poster presented at
the biennial meeting of the Society for Research and Child Development, Atlanta, GA.
Haaf, R., Fulkerson, A. L., Shull, S. S., Todd, J. T., Hupp, J., & Jablonski, B. (May, 2004).
Attentional deployment and object recognition in 4- and 8-month-old infants. Poster
presented at the biennial meeting of the International Conference for Infant Studies,
Chicago, IL.
Research and Scholarship
Research Projects
2007
Infants’ Understanding of Eye Gaze and Later Action: Investigation into
12-month-olds’ use of direction of eye gaze to predict later goal-directed
behavior. Follow-up to findings from Doctoral Dissertation.
2006-2007
Maternal gestures at 13 and 20 months: Collaboration with Peg Hull
Smith; Investigated the type and content of maternal gestures in a
longitudinal study. This work culminated in a manuscript submitted to
Gesture.
2006-2007
Temperament and Gaze-following: Collaboration with Wallace E. Dixon, Jr:
Role of temperament characteristics in moderating 11- and 14-month-olds
gaze-following abilities. This work culminated in a manuscript submitted to
Infancy (manuscript currently under revision).
2005 to present
Infants’ Encoding of Behavior: Investigation into the scope and limits of 12month-olds’ reasoning of other’s behavior as goal-directed. Project in
progress in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Doctoral Dissertation.
Summer 2005
Relationship between Categorization and Word Level: Collaboration with
Peg Hull Smith and Wendelyn Shore; Investigation of the relationship
between 20-month-old infants’ categorical knowledge and productive
vocabulary.
2004 to 2005
Contextual Effects on Infant Gaze Following: Investigation of the impact
of differing test conditions in terms of environmental familiarity on 11-, 14and 18-month-old infants’ capacity to follow gaze. Project completed in
partial fulfillment of the requirements for Master of Arts degree.
Fall 2003
Project ABC: Collaboration with Peg Hull Smith, Robert A. Haaf, and Laura
Seligman; Intervention program assessing cognitive and motor skills of
preschool children in Toledo-area Head Start programs.
2003
Attention to Configuration of Geometric Forms: Collaboration with Robert
A. Haaf and Anne Fulkerson; Investigation of 4- to 8-month-old infants’
attention to structure and configuration of geometric objects.
Mentoring Experience
Undergraduate Research Supervisor
Program for Developmental Studies, University of Toledo
2002 to 2007
Awards and Honors
Graduate Research Assistantship
University of Toledo
2002 to 2007
Invited Fellowship and Tuition Award
Central European University
2005
Research Travel Award
University of Toledo
2005
Professional Organizations
International Society on Infant Studies
2004 to present
Cognitive Development Society
2005 to present
Teaching Experience
Fall 2007
Instructor, Department of Psychology, University of Toledo
Course: Advanced Research Methods
Design and implementation of upper-level undergraduate course.
Responsible for every aspect, including lecturing, test construction, leading
discussions in seminar format, and conducting writing workshops.
Fall 2006 & 2005
Instructor, Department of Psychology, University of Toledo.
Course: Lifespan Development
Design and implementation of undergraduate course. Responsible for every
aspect, including grading, lecturing, and test construction.
Spring 2005
Co-Instructor and Teaching Assistant, Department of Psychology, University
of Toledo
Course: Psychology Honor’s Conference
Design and structuring of Honor’s-level undergraduate course on current
special topics in cognitive development. Responsible for construction of
syllabus, leading class discussions, grading of assignments and in-class
discussions, and selection of course materials.
Spring 2006
Teaching Assistant, Department of Psychology, University of Toledo.
Course: Social Psychology
Duties included holding review sessions for students and grading online
discussion questions.
Spring 2005
Teaching Assistant, Department of Psychology, University of Toledo
Course: Introduction to Psychology
Leading of weekly discussion section. Assignment and grading of quizzes
and paper assignments.