EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MASSACHUSETTS AGGRESSION REDUCTION CENTER at BRIDGEWATER STATE UNIVERSITY
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Professor of Psychology
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Founding Member, Social and Emotional Research Consortium
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Award-Winning Author & Speaker
Boston Red Sox
Most Valuable Educator
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MA Governor's
Advisory Council
Dr. Englander on NPR & other radio shows
National Public Radio -
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Harvard University's EdCast: Understanding a Bully
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Blog Talk Radio: Tips for Parents (15 minutes; target audience: parents)
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Elizabeth Englander | Speaker on PBS & NPR Forum Network
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Education Talk Radio - Bullying & Cyberbullying
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Interview with Michael Mantell from Schoolbriefing.com
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With Dr. Jane Karwoski and Jim Nico on the Social Network Channel
With Larry Jacobs on Higher Education Talk Radio
SHORT BIOGRAPHY
My name is Dr. Elizabeth Kandel Englander, and I am a professor of Psychology and the founder and Director of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center at Bridgewater State University, a Center which delivers programs, resources, and research for the state of Massachusetts and nationwide. I am a nationally recognized researcher and expert in the area of bullying and cyberbullying, childhood causes of aggression and abuse, and children’s use of technology. I was named Most Valuable Educator of 2013 by the Boston Red Sox because of my work in technological aggression and how it interacts with peer abusiveness in general. In 2018, I was appointed to the Massachusetts Governor's Juvenile Justice Advisory Council.
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I am on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Institute of Child Development and Digital Media. Each year I train and supervise graduate and undergraduate students and collaborate with multiple agencies around the State of Massachusetts and across the nation. MARC provides programs to hundreds of schools each year, and I personally train teachers, help educate parents, and speak publicly at dozens of schools, universities, and conferences nationwide and internationally.
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I write for both academic audiences and for the public. I was the Special Editor for the Cyberbullying issues of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry-CONNECT and the Journal of Social Sciences, and I've authored more than a hundred articles in academic journals and books. I am the author of nine books, both for adults and for children, including the Insanely Awesome series, 25 Myths About Bullying and Cyberbullying, Understanding Violence, a standard academic text in the field of child development and violent criminal behavior, and of Bullying and Cyberbullying: A Guide for Educators, published by Harvard Education Press. I have also written a variety of research-based curricula and educational handouts for communities and professionals. Reflecting my interest in educating laypeople, I have answered questions in a column for the New York Times (online edition), and I wrote the column Bullying Bulletin Board, which was syndicated by Gatehouse Media in hundreds of newspapers nationwide.
MY EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND.
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I went to college at the University of California, Berkeley, where I graduated with Phi Beta Kappa and High Honors in Psychology. After finishing my bachelor's degree, I earned my PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Southern California as an All‑University Predoctoral Merit Fellow, where I conducted research on the causes of aggression. I trained as a Post-Doctoral Fellow with a National Institute of Mental Health Merit Research Service Award at the University of New Hampshire at the Family Research Laboratory, and then began my career as a professor in public higher education in Massachusetts.
In 1993 I started teaching as an Assistant Professor at Bridgewater State University, in the Department of Psychology. After achieving a Full Professorship and briefly serving as Chair in the Department, I am now the Executive Director of MARC. In 2021, I was a Founding Member of the Social and Emotional Research Consortium (SERC). I continue to teach and train undergraduate and graduate students.
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See evaluations and feedback from presentations and workshops
Developing Training, Research and Fieldwork at the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center
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In 2004, I was awarded the first Presidential Fellowship at Bridgewater State University to found a Center to work on understanding and reducing bullying and cyberbullying. This was the beginning of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center, or "MARC," an academic Center in public higher education, committed to a public health model for bullying and cyberbullying prevention for the state of Massachusetts. We offer programs and services for other states as well. Today, we have approximately forty faculty, graduate students, undergraduate students, and support staff working at MARC. And we still deliver high-quality bullying and cyberbullying prevention services to K-12 schools and other stakeholders - usually, at no cost to those within Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center conducts research and provides many types of programs and services to schools. I am, at heart, a researcher, and I believe in basing the training materials I author on the research I conduct. You can read some of my research papers and other publications.
In addition to papers that are published primarily in academic journals, I've also authored a great many other materials that you may find useful. There are materials written for parents, teachers, and/or administrators about understanding and responding to bullying and cyberbullying. There are age-appropriate, research-based Curricula (for grades K-5, 6-12 and 9-12). These cover Pandemic SEL, Bullying and Cyberbullying, and Digital Behaviors. (All are entirely free.)
I've trained tens of thousands of teachers, counselors, and administrators, thousands of students, and have been teaching graduate and undergraduate students for more than 25 years. I present at local and national conferences every year across the United States.