Elizabeth Pungello Bruno, Ph.D., is the President of the Brady Education Foundation, whose mission is to promote educational access and equity. BEF pursues its mission by promoting collaboration among researchers, educators, and other stakeholders via the funding of research projects and program evaluations that are based on a strength-based perspective and have the potential of informing private funders and public policy. For example, BEF funded a grant to develop design the data system and monitoring process for assessing compliance with the Leandro requirements.  

Prior to shifting her primary professional efforts to the Foundation, Dr. Bruno was a Research Associate Professor in the Developmental Psychology Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Scientist at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute where her main research focus was on early care and education environments and school readiness skills of placed-at-risk children, funded by grants from private foundations and government agencies. 

More specifically, her work included the investigation of the long-term outcomes of the Abecedarian Project (a longitudinal study of the effects of early education (delivered ages 0-5) on cognitive and academic, social-emotional, and health outcomes through adulthood); the exploration of the associations among race/ethnicity, income, parenting, childcare quality and language development and school readiness; and the investigation of factors that influence why and how parents search for and select child care. 

Dr. Bruno currently serves on the editorial boards of the Early Childhood Research Quarterly and the Journal of Marriage and Family and has published many articles and book chapters on early education environments, family circumstances, and child outcomes. 

Dr. Bruno received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Rochester (graduating Magna Cum Laude and with Highest Honors) and her M.A. in Child Clinical Psychology and Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.