Executive function in context
How planning, flexibility, self-regulation, and problem-solving operate in children's everyday environments.
Developmental psychologist · Cognitive scientist · Educator
Dr. Chika Ezeugwu
I investigate how children develop, learn, and adapt across diverse cultural and socioeconomic contexts—and how developmental science can better represent their everyday strengths and experiences.
Harvard University
Boston Children's Hospital
About
Research built around children's real lives
I am a Postdoctoral Fellow with Harvard University's Mind Brain Behavior Initiative and a Research Fellow at Boston Children's Hospital. My work connects cognition, child development, neuroscience, and education to improve educational practice and children's experiences in low-income contexts.
I earned an MPhil and PhD from the University of Cambridge and a BSc in Applied Psychology from Adekunle Ajasin University. Across my research, teaching, and public engagement, I work to make developmental science more contextually grounded, equitable, and globally representative.
Research themes
What I study
Culturally responsive measurement
Developing ecological, observational, vignette-based, and psychometric tools that reflect children's lived experiences.
Child development in Africa
Broadening representation in developmental science and strengthening African research networks and knowledge systems.
Learning, resilience, and adaptation
Understanding how families, schools, culture, play, and social conditions shape children's developmental pathways.
Featured initiative
My Pikin Project
A research program exploring the holistic nature of child development, with particular attention to cultural strengths, adaptive skills, resilience, and the diverse ways children navigate everyday complexity.
- Ecological measures of executive function
- Executive function and academic outcomes
- Maternal wellbeing and children's cortical responses
- Contextually grounded mixed-methods research
CultureContext and community
StrengthsAdaptation and resilience
DevelopmentCognition and learning
Selected publications
Recent scholarship
Executive function and academic outcomes in low- and middle-income countries
Systematic review and meta-analysis · Accepted in Developmental Psychology.
Psychometric properties of the NIH Toolbox Executive Function Battery in Nigerian preschoolers
Developmental Neuropsychology.
Developing a culturally relevant executive-function observation scale
Journal of Infant and Child Development.
Broadening cognitive science in Nigeria: Foundation for a new discipline
Cognitive Science.
Teaching & speaking
Sharing research across disciplines
Cognitive Development Society
Workshop on measuring executive function in real-world contexts.
Society for Research in Child Development
Research on culturally relevant measurement and executive function in Africa.
Duke University
Invited talk: Adaptive executive function—what it is and how it can be measured.
Cambridge & Anglia Ruskin
Research methods, statistics, cognitive development, and student supervision.
Contact
Let's start a conversation
I welcome inquiries about research collaboration, invited talks, developmental science, executive function, culturally responsive measurement, and global education.