Robert L. Selman  Robert L. Selman (born May 7, 1942) is an American-born educational psychologist and perspective-taking theorist. who specializes in adolescent social development. He is married to Anne Selman and father to Jesse Selman and Matt Selman. He is the Roy E. Larsen Professor of Education and Human Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) and a Professor of Psychology in Medicine at Harvard University. Robert Selman founded the Risk and Prevention masters program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1992, and served as its first director through to 1999. (In 2010, the program was renamed “Prevention Science and Practice.”) Selman served as the chair of the Human Development and Psychology department at HGSE from 2000 to 2004. At the Harvard Medical School, he is professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry, where he serves as senior associate at the Judge Baker Children's Center and at the Department of Psychiatry at Children's Hospital Boston. Selman's research has focused on helping children develop social-awareness and social-engagement competencies as a way to reduce risks to their health, as well as to promote their social relationships and academic performance. His work on the promotion of children's understanding of ways to get along with others from different backgrounds is conducted in the context of literacy and language arts curricula at the elementary level; in school-based programs designed to coordinate support and prevention services for students in public middle schools; and in the social studies, literature, and history curricula for high schools. His past work focused on the treatment of psychological disorders of youth in day school and residential treatment and the prevention of these disorders in children and adolescents placed at risk  Selman received a B.A. in psychology from Cornell University and a Ph.D. from Boston University in Clinical, Community, and Counseling Psychology in 1969. He then studied with Lawrence Kohlberg at Harvard University both under a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) post-doctoral fellowship in developmental psychology, and as a research associate. Selman's initial research focused on the child's developing capacity to coordinate points of view, develop interpersonal negotiation strategies, and become aware of the personal meaning of risk in the context of social relationships and the larger culture. From 1975 to 1990, Selman was the director of the Manville School of the Judge Baker Children's Center, which provides special educational and clinical services for children with severe social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties. During his tenure as director, the Manville School provided academic training opportunities in both research and practice to doctoral students from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.