Helen H. Raikes, PhD, is the Willa Cather Professor Emeritus of Child, Youth, and Family Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She has been a member of the ZERO TO THREE Board of Directors since 2021.
Contributions to the Field
Dr. Raikes is a longtime innovator in early childhood education who focuses on using research to improve outcomes and expand opportunities for children from low-income backgrounds before they enter school. Her work also explores how to optimize children’s early emotional, language, and physiological development.
She is a frequent presenter on early childhood, Head Start, and child care research. While serving as a Society for Research in Child Development Executive Policy Fellow at the Administration for Children and Families within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, she provided leadership for the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project.
During her tenure at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Dr. Raikes completed a cross-cultural study of children’s self-regulation with collaborators in Ankara, Turkey. She has also been involved in projects in Colombia and Rwanda focused on water quality and child stunting.
Today, she lives adjacent to a family farm that has been in her husband’s family for generations. She is the mother of three and grandmother of six. Dr. Raikes holds a BS in Journalism from Iowa State University, an MS in Human Development from the University of California, Davis, and a PhD in Child Development from Iowa State University.
Affiliations
- Willa Cather Professor Emeritus of Child, Youth, and Family Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
- Board Member, Buffett Early Childhood Fund
- Trustee, Nebraska Historical Society Foundation
- Former Board Member, Nebraska Children and Families Foundation
- Former Board Member, Sixpence Early Childhood Partnership
- Trustee and Former Board Member, Lincoln Community Foundation
- Former Fellow, Daughterty Water for Global Food Institute
- Former Fellow, The Center for Great Plains Studies
- Affiliate, Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools
Recognition and Thought Leadership
Since retiring, Dr. Raikes and her late husband, Dr. Ronald Raikes, were honored with the Grace Abbott Award in recognition of their contributions to children and families in Nebraska. She has also provided leadership in rural Nebraska to strengthen the early childhood workforce through the Nebraska Early Childhood Home Town Interns project and serves as co-lead of Ashland-Greenwood Area Communities for Kids.
