Dr. Peg Barratt has been dean of The George Washington University Columbian College of Arts and Sciences since August 2007, overseeing the oldest and largest of the University’s academic units. As dean, she is committed to advancing a strong partnership with a faculty of distinguished scholars and teachers and a community of fellow students who are serious about ideas and making their ideas connect to the world. She manages more than 40 departments, with programs in the arts and humanities; social and behavioral sciences; and natural, mathematical and biomedical sciences.

Prior to her arrival at GW, Dr. Barratt served as the Deputy Director of the Clinical Research Policy Analysis and Coordination program at NIH, where she received a Director’s Award in 2008. Other positions include Division Director for Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences at the National Science Foundation and director of the Institute for Children, Youth, and Families at Michigan State University. She was on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison for 19 years in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies and served as department chair. At the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Dr. Barratt taught an introductory course in child development, a graduate course in research methods, and other courses. She received the University of Wisconsin–Madison Distinguished Teaching Award in 1998.

Dr. Barratt's research is in the area of parent-child interaction with a focus on naturalistic field work. Special populations that have been the focus of her research include single adult mothers, adolescent mothers, mothers and fathers of young children with Down syndrome, families in Japan, and parents with preterm infants. Her research has been published in the American Journal of Mental Deficiency, Infant Behavior and Development, Family Relations, Developmental Psychology, and other journals, and she served as an Associate Editor of Developmental Psychology. In 2002, she was selected as a Fellow in the American Psychological Association, and in 2007 as a Fellow in the Association for Psychological Science.

Her extensive education includes a M. Phil. in psychology from GW. In addition, Dr. Barratt holds Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology from Michigan State University.