Diane Bales is the co-leader of the national eXtension Alliance for Better Child Care community of practice, which actively engages and educates child care providers, parents, and community leaders with high-quality web-based early childhood resources and learning experiences. As an Associate Professor in the University of Georgia’s Department of Human Development and Family Science, she teaches traditional and online courses in child development and early learning. She is also a Human Development Specialist with UGA Cooperative Extension, where she provides leadership for Extension education with parents and caregivers of young children. She has a B. A. in Psychology from Carleton College and a M. A. and Ph.D. in Child Psychology from the University of Minnesota.
Diane is the co-leader of Georgia’s long-standing Better Brains for Babies initiative, which educates professionals and parents about early brain development. Her primary research and outreach interests relate to brain development, early learning, and obesity prevention in early childhood education settings. She is a past president of the Georgia Association on Young Children, and is a member of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the National Council on Family Relations, the Society for Research in Child Development, and the National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences. She and teams of Extension agents have received several Early Childhood Child Care Education awards at the state, regional, and national levels.
Contact Information:
Diane Bales, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Science
Human Development Specialist
University of Georgia Cooperative Extension
email: dbales@uga.edu
office: 706-542-7566
twitter:@dianewbales