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“All of my favourite memories are related to my family: my parents, my brothers who never gave me a break because I was a girl (and put me in a good position to understand my strengths!), our children and extended family. I like to say that I never left UWI. After undergrad at St. Augustine, I took a year off to manage a restaurant. But since then I have been at UWI Mona as a post-grad student, teaching assistant, assistant lecturer and so on. I’ve been offered posts elsewhere but chose the support systems I have here, which includes my colleagues. It was my great good fortune to meet Professor Sally Grantham-McGregor at the Tropical Metabolism Research Unit in 1985. She has been a huge influence on my work and life; in particular, her enormous enthusiasm for work, her determination to keep the questions grounded and useful, and her uncompromising research rigour, all while keeping her wonderful good humour.”

Dr. Julie Meeks Gardner

SENIOR LECTURER AND HEAD
CARIBBEAN CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTRE
CONSORTIUM FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
OPEN CAMPUS, JAMAICA
Tel: (876) 927-1618 • Email: Julie.Meeksgardner@uwimona.edu.jm

PROFILE

Career milestones for Dr. Julie Meeks Gardner include her first principal investigator grant from the Commonwealth Caribbean Medical Research Council (now Caribbean Health Research Council - CHRC) in 1989, her Fellowship at Churchill College, Cambridge UK in 1994 where she undertook work at the Medical Research Council’s Applied Psychology Unit, and her selection as Head of the Caribbean Child Development Centre in 2004. She was recognized by the Organization of American States in 2006 and asked to make a presentation to their members on children and youth and violence in Jamaica. Two of her most important awards were the Young Researchers Award at the annual CHRC Scientific Meeting in 1998 and the UWI Principal’s Award for Research with an Impact on Public Policy (as part of the Child Development Research Group) in 2006. Dr. Meeks Gardner has completed one of the only studies on risk and protective factors for aggressive behavior among Jamaican boys, and followed the sample for eight years to examine them longitudinally. This has provided valuable insights into the development of aggression and violence in Jamaica, and suggested the best targets for interventions to reduce violence.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Dr. Meeks Gardner’s research interests lie in children’s nutrition, development and behaviour in developing countries. She has focused on problems related to poverty, such as global malnutrition and specific nutrient deficiencies (notably zinc), their relation to child development and altered behaviours among children, as well as children’s interactions with others including their mothers or other caregivers, other adults and other children. She has also studied cognitive development of babies, and wide-ranging developmental issues in school children including affected memory. In the last 12 years she has concentrated on issues related to aggression and violence, including children who are aggressive and the effects of violence on children, as well as eating disorders.