Lana Karasik

Dr. Lana Karasik is an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at the College of Staten Island and the Graduate Center, CUNY. She directs the Culture & Development Lab, located in 4S, focusing on how cultural practices and childrearing influence infant motor development and learning. Her research examines cross-cultural variations in motor skill acquisition and their impact on social interactions and cognitive development.

Dr. Karasik holds a PhD from New York University and a BA from the University of Michigan. Her work combines naturalistic and experimental methods, conducted domestically and internationally, to explore how infants' motor milestones shape their exploration of environments and caregivers' adaptive behaviors.

Her research interests emphasize cultural influences on infant development, including sitting, crawling, and walking practices. She investigates how caregivers' expectations evolve with infants' motor capabilities, leveraging cross-cultural studies as 'natural experiments' to assess restricted experiences' effects.

Recent collaborations include fieldwork in Tajikistan to study cultural practices and child development, highlighting her commitment to global research. Visit karasiklab.org for lab details.