Tovah Klein

Tovah Klein

Adjunct Associate Professor, Psychology; Director, Barnard College Toddler Center      

Department

Toddler Center, Psychology

Office

412D Milbank Hall

Contact

Tovah P. Klein, Director of the Barnard College Center for Toddler Development and Adjunct Associate Professor, joined the Barnard psychology faculty in 1995. Her research, teaching and applied work is focused on young children and families. She teaches a year long course on toddler development.

Prior to coming to Barnard she was a clinical fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital and received her doctorate in psychology from Duke University.

Her research focuses on young children's social and emotional development, parental influences on early development, and parents' experiences raising young children, including the challenges of combining work and family. She also studies children’s play as a means to communicate and process emotions and stressful experiences.

She is an advisor to programs for children worldwide, including Room to Grow, Ubuntu Pathways, Children’s Museum of Manhattan and Hunts Point Alliance for Children. She is the author of How Toddlers Thrive: What parents can do today to plant the seeds of lifelong success (Simon & Schuster, 2014).

In The News

The Barnard Center for Toddler Development celebrated half a century of groundbreaking research — and new state-of-the-art digs — with parents, alumnae, and community members.

March 3, 2023

Barnard College’s “toddler whisperer” and professor of psychology Tovah P. Klein offers expert advice for staying close this Mother's Day while socially distancing.

May 8, 2020

From biology to psychology, Barnard leadership and faculty share their expertise on how best to cope during the current crisis.

April 23, 2020