GOLD Speakers

James J. McKenna, Ph.D

• Country: USA

Biography:

JAMES MCKENNA (B.A., University of California, Berkeley; M.A., San Diego State University; Ph.D., University of Oregon) Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C., Professor of Anthropology

McKenna pioneered the first behavioral and electro-physiological studies documenting differences between mothers and infants sleeping together and apart and has become known worldwide for his work in promoting studies of breast feeding and mother-infant cosleeping. A biological anthropologist, and Director of the Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory McKenna began his career studying the social behavior and development of monkeys and apes with an emphasis on parenting behavior and ecology. He has published over 150 articles and six books including a popular parenting book Sleeping With Your baby: A Parents Guide To Co-sleeping. He has coedited Ancestral Landscapes In Human Evolution, Evolutionary Medicine, and a more recent co-edited volume Evolution and Health: New Perspectives (Oxford University Press. He won the prestigious Shannon Award (with Dr. Sarah Mosko) from the National Institutes of Child Health and Development for his SIDS research and is the nation's foremost authority and spokesperson to the national press on issues pertaining to infant and childhood sleep problems, sleep development, and breastfeeding.