USC Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education
The USC Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education (CANDLE) brings educational innovation and developmental affective neuroscience into partnership, and uses what is learned to guide the transformation of schools, policy, and the student and teacher experience for a healthier and more equitable society.
CANDLE is a center of the USC Rossier School of Education housed at the Brain and Creativity Institute.
Publication spotlight
In this ground-breaking collection, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang presents a decade of work with the potential to revolutionize educational theory and practice by deeply enriching our understanding of the complex connection between emotion and learning.
TRANSLATIONS
This policy brief written for The Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development explores how emotions and relationships drive learning and are a fundamental part of how our brains develop.
This report written by Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and a select group of senior advisory board members on the International Science and Evidence Based Education (ISEE) Assessment to re-envision the future of education. The ambitious initiative was led by the UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development.
In this Educational Leadership article, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and Doug Knecht talk about the synergies between brain development in adolescence and successful progressive educational strategies.
Lectures and Media
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang discusses what the science of learning is and why learning is social, emotional, and cognitive all at once.
Mary Helen talks with 500 high school students at Kent Denver School in Colorado about their brains and social-emotional development.
In NOVA’S 2-hour special Mary Helen Immordino-Yang joins education experts Carol Dweck, Sal Khan, Linda Darling-Hammond and others to imagine how schools can prepare students for imminent challenges.
In this free webinar part of USC Rossier’s initiative, A New Vision for Schools, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang joins a panel of experts to discuss improving mental and emotional health in K-12 schools.
Mary Helen and Doug Knecht do a deep-dive into how emotion, cognition, and social skills are deeply intertwined in the way that young people learn, and in the way that their experiences in the world, including at school, grow their ability to think and develop into educated, thoughtful, engaged, and purposeful citizens.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang gives the closing keynote at AFT TEACH 2023. The annual conference presented by the American Federation of Teachers.
Mary Helen in conversation with Doug Knecht
Mary Helen in conversation with Lourdes Epstein. (Video starts at 16:40 minutes)
USC Rossier School of Education
Fall 2022 Master Class Series
Professor Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and Dean Pedro Noguera.
In the news
Exciting News! Article published in the Review of Research in Education. “Weaving a colorful cloth: Centering education on humans’ emergent development potentials.”
Exciting new publication by Xiao-Fei Yang, Katrina Hillard, Rebecca Gotlieb and Mary Helen Immordino-Yang! “Transcendent thinking counteracts longitudinal effects of mid-adolescent exposure to community violence in the anterior cingulate cortex.” Available now online in the Journal of Research on Adolescence.
https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12993
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang is a featured guest on the live call in show, Forum. National Public Radio station KQED in the bay area. Hosted by Lesley McClurg. Mary Helen talks about the strong emotions associated with mistakes. Recorded live at NPR West in Los Angeles.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and USC work with schools to research the impact of their environments on students.
In this episode, Dr. Huberman interviews Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, EdD, professor of education, neuroscience and psychology at the University of Southern California and director of the Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education, who has done groundbreaking research on emotions, self-awareness and social interactions and how these impact the way we learn and change across our lifespan. She explains how an understanding of emotions can be leveraged to improve learning in children and in adults, and how the education system should be altered to include new forms of exploration and to facilitate better learning and to include more diverse learning (and teaching) styles. This episode ought to be of interest to anyone interested in how we learn, human development in children and adults, as well as those generally interested in education, psychology or neuroscience. Watch the interview here.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang Elected to the National Academy of Education. Expert in developmental psychology and neuroscience, she joins the foremost organization in education practice and policy. Read the USC announcement. Read the NAEd announcement.
“Rest is not idleness.” Mary Helen Immordino-Yang explains in The Wall Street Journal how rest plays an important role in building identity and purpose.
“This is an opportunity, if we take it, to courageously rethink what school means.” Mary Helen Immordino-Yang explains in the Los Angeles Daily News how we can “reinvent” a better education system for students.
In this Parenting Understood podcast episode, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang discusses parenting and children’s neuropsychological developments.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang talks about her research and recent Educational Leadership article, “Building Meaning Builds Teens’ Brains,” in this Lost in Citations podcast episode, hosted by Dr. Robert S. Murphy.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang dives into the neuroscience of relationships, in this Rooted in Relationships podcast episode with Search Institute. You can also access the conversation through Developing Resilience: A Conversation with Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang on Learning from Emotions, an article by Ariel Ervin from the Chronicles of Evidence Based Mentoring.
This event was a big success. Look for the next event in November 2024.
Our work
The Neuroscience of Social Emotions
We investigate the psychological and neurobiological processes that undergird the private experiences (feelings) of social emotions
Youth Development
Adolescence is a time of intense brain development in systems that support social and ethical thinking, meaning-making, and emotional feelings. We study how these processes take place over time, how they are supported by pedagogical practices and relationships, and how they lead to adolescents’ thriving.
Effective Teaching
We explore how teachers’ pedagogical practices along with their mindsets, beliefs, and attitudes support deeper learning and social-emotional development of adolescents
Advancing Theory & Methods
Recent advances in brain and psychological science show the fundamental influences of social-emotional and cultural experiences on how the brain develops and how kids and adults think, feel and learn. This project focuses on building a transdisciplinary framework for theoretical and methodological innovation in developmental psychology, education and social-affective neuroscience.
Resources
CANDLE provides resources for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to guide the transformation of schools, policy, and the student and teacher experience.
Publications
CANDLE publishes and widely disseminates its research and analysis to guide the transformation of schools, policy, and the student and teacher experience.
announcements
READ AND SHARE
A white paper titled, Becoming a Reader: What We Know and What We Need to Know about Literacy and Reading Self-Efficacy among Black, Brown, and Indigenous Low-SES Youth, is now published in an AERDF February 2022 Report.
[ACCESS]
READ AND SHARE
Please check out our latest publication on Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (SCAN): Default and executive networks’ roles in diverse adolescents’ emotionally engaged construals of complex social issues
CANDLE WELCOMES JAMAAL MATTHEWS
The CANDLE team welcomes Jamaal Matthews, who has received a three-year NSF mid-career faculty fellowship with Mary Helen to study social affective neuroscience and collaborate with CANDLE researchers to forge a new conversation and research approach bringing together racial equity studies with developmental brain studies in adolescents.
CANDLE TO PARTNER WITH DA VINCI RISE HIGH
Erin Whalen, Principal/Executive Director of Da Vinci RISE High becomes a CANDLE advisory board member and partner: “I can’t thank you enough for your INCREDIBLE advocacy for what is right and pioneering of this mandatory revolution of education in the US and beyond. When the data and the metrics are not working, we need to pivot to the next place, and that’s the science.”
THANK YOU TO OUR PAST & CURRENT FUNDERS