Susan Engel Ph.D.

Susan Engel, Ph.D. teaches in the Department of Psychology at Williams College and is the founding director of the college's Program in Teaching. Her research interests include children’s narratives, play, the development of curiosity, and more generally, teaching and learning.Her work has appeared in journals such as Cognitive Development, and the American Education Research Journal. She is the author of four books: The Stories Children Tell: Making Sense of the Narratives of Childhood, Context is Everything: The Nature of Memory, Real Kids: Making Sense in Everyday Life, and Red Flags or Red Herrings: Predicting Who Your Child Will Become. She has also published a number of columns and op-ed pieces on education in the The New York Times. She is a founder of an experimental school in New York State, where for fourteen years she served as the educational advisor. She is currently working with the Spencer Foundation, trying to develop new ways to measure what children learn in school. She lives in New Marlborough, MA with her husband, Tom Levin. They have three sons, Jake, Will and Sam.