Advisory Board

An incredibly knowledgeable Advisory Board supports the work of Head Start Body Start National Center for Physical Development and Outdoor Play! Fourteen distinguished professionals help guide our work and support the HSBS team in remaining up-to-date on relevant issues and research and provide recommendations and feedback on the Center's strategic plans.

Melinda Bossenmeyer, Ed.D, is president and founder of Peaceful Playgrounds, a resource for children and educators, which is found in more than 8,000 schools across the country. She has written and published six books on playgrounds and numerous articles on recess, playgrounds, and interactive play. She has presented more than 100 educational conference sessions. Melinda currently publishes Play Nice, a Peaceful Playgrounds newsletter that reaches 10,000 administrators and teachers nationwide. She also co-authors the Recess Blog and was a writer on the California Physical Education Framework for the Department of Education. Melinda is a Nationally Certified Playground Inspector and has been a member of the board of the National Program for Playground Safety, a chair for the Council on Play with the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD), and a member of Sate Superintendent of Schools Jack O’Connell’s California Task Force on Childhood Obesity, Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease. She is a retired principal, teacher, and county office administrator.

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Amanda Bryans, MS, is the director of the Educational Development and Partnerships Division, Office of Head Start. She has a decade of experience working in a local Head Start program: five years as the disabilities services and education coordinator and for five years as director. Amanda was hired as a program analyst for the Office of Head Start in 1999 and became the branch chief of Program Management and Operations in 2001. In 2003, she was appointed acting division director for Program Operations and became the division director in 2004, a position she occupied until taking her current role as director of Educational Development and Partnerships Division in October 2006. Amanda has a BS in human development and family studies from Cornell University and an MS in educational psychology, measurement and statistics from the State University of New York, Albany. She is also the mother of a very busy young child. 

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Maura Burke, Ed.S, has been an educator of young children for seventeen years. She is coordinator of the early childhood programs in Fairfax County (VA) Public Schools (kindergarten and Head Start). Maura oversees the Head Start grant and the implementation of curriculum and assessment for kindergarten and Head Start, as well as the comprehensive services offered to Head Start children and families. She started her career in Fairfax County Public Schools as a preschool special education teacher. Through participation in an Inclusive Schools grant, Maura was one of the first teachers in Fairfax to provide opportunities for preschool children with special needs to attend school in an inclusive setting.

After six years of teaching special education, Maura became a Head Start teacher. During this time Maura worked on Project Realign, a collaborative grant through The George Washington University, to facilitate team building and support learning communities for teacher researchers. This sparked an interest in adult learning within the context of professional learning communities. She left the classroom to pursue her interest in working with adults, becoming a resource teacher and education specialist to Head Start and kindergarten teachers. Maura has co-authored curriculum, assessments, and teacher resource guides. Most recently she created the Preschool Program of Studies, which aligns the preschool curriculum with that of kindergarten through 12th grade. She helped design a course for new preschool teachers and a mathematics course for kindergarten teachers. She has been an instructor at George Mason University and has presented to educators at conferences on a variety of topics, including “Portfolios in the Preschool Classroom,” “Early Childhood Inclusion Program,” and “Adapting the Philosophy of Reggio Emilia.” Before her career in education, Maura worked for a member of the House of Representatives, an international labor union, and a political research firm. She lives in Washington, D.C. 

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Linda Carson, Ed.D, is the Ware Distinguished Professor at West Virginia University (WVU) and the director of the WV Motor Development Center, which provides learning laboratories and applied research for a variety of academic disciplines at WVU. For nearly three decades, Linda has offered award winning physical activity programs for infants, babies, toddlers, pre-school, and elementary school children in both land-based and water-based learning environments, earning recognition for involving family members as play partners. She is the 2009 Pathfinder Award recipient, given by the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport, for her contributions to the well-being and skill development of young children. Linda is recognized for designing innovative children’s programs with a focus on healthy living and active learning. The signature feature of her play programs is a character named “Choosy” who promotes healthy decision making by children and grownups.

Linda was an expert trainer for the Office of Head Start’s obesity prevention initiative, “I Am Moving, I Am Learning,” which received the 2006 National Honor Award for Excellence in Partnering from the Department of Health and Human Services. She is also on the training team for “Little Voices for Healthy Choices,” an obesity prevention initiative being piloted in 24 Early Head Start programs nationwide.

Linda is on the leadership team of West Virginia Games for Health, a series of statewide projects that have used total-body video games to enhance health indicators of public school children K-12 by increasing their physical activity levels. The first of its kind, the Games for Health project provides teacher training, school club assistance, and active video game equipment for every public school in West Virginia. The pioneering research from this project demonstrated significant changes in the health indicators of obese children as a result of participating in regular play of DDR, a total-body video game. 

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Jane E. Clark, Ph.D, is professor and chair of the Department of Kinesiology and professor in the Neuroscience and Cognitive Sciences program at the University of Maryland, College Park. She has co-edited 7 texts in motor development, authored 24 book chapters, and authored more than 59 refereed journal publications. Her articles have appeared in such publications as Journal of Motor Behavior; Child Development; Child, Health & Development; Developmental Psychology; Journal of Neurophysiology; Infant Behavior & Development; Journal of Gerontology; Developmental Psychobiology; Experimental Brain Research; Motor Control; Neuroscience Letters; Human Movement Science; Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport; Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly; Infant Behavior and Development;and Quest. Jane has also presented more than 200 scientific papers at national and international conferences and universities.

Jane is an active member of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHERD) and was the secretary and president of the AAHPERD’s Research Consortium (RC), as well as chair of the Motor Development Academy of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE). She has been honored by the Eastern District as Outstanding Teacher in the College Division (1988) and as Scholar Lecturer (1995), and by the RC as the McCloy Lecturer (1995). In 2001 she chaired the NASPE Task Force on Guidelines for Infant and Preschool Physical Activity (Active Start).In 2007 she an AAHPERD Alliance Scholar. A past president of the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity, Jane has been an active member of several other professional organizations dedicated to the study of motor development, including the International Society for Research in Developmental Coordination Disorder and the International Society for Infant Studies. In 1993 she was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education (AAKPE), a society limited to 150 active scholars in the field of kinesiology. In 2006 she was elected AAKPE’s president.

Jane’s research focuses on the developing relationship between perception and action in infants and young children. She also studies children with motor coordination problems. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), more than $2.6 million total as PI. Her current NIH funding focuses on children with Developmental Coordination Disorder. Jane has bachelor’s degree in health and physical education from the State University of New York, Brockport; a master’s in physical education from the University of Washington; and a Ph.D. in motor development from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

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Rhonda L. Clements, Ed.D, is a professor of physical education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Special Subjects at Manhattanville College, Purchase, New York. There she is the program director of the MAT in physical education and sport pedagogy. She is currently serving on the Early Childhood Development Unit for UNICEF, where she has co-authored a document that will be circulated throughout the world to caregivers during times of natural disasters and emergencies. Her expertise in this project focuses on developmentally and age-appropriate activities.

Rhonda has authored or edited nine books on the subject of movement, play, and game activities for children. She has also written more than 20 articles concerning the need for play for preschool and elementary school children, including seven book chapters. She has presented at more than 40 international and national conferences and more than 60 state and local conferences. She was one of the original contributors to Active Start: A Statement of Physical Activity Guidelines for Birth to Five Years,sponsored by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education. She was the recipient of the Early Childhood News Director Award in the curriculum category for the “Let’s Move, Let’s Play” product.

Rhonda is the past president of the American Association For the Child’s Right to Play and has been a consultant to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to train Native American Head Start specialists, as well as Kindercare, Children’s Television Network/Sesame Street, Sesame Place, Nick Jr. Family Magazine, The Disney Channel, and Crayola Crayons, among others. She has an Ed.D from Teachers College at Columbia University, where she studied early childhood and kindergarten developmental characteristics and movement education activities.

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Diane H. Craft, Ph.D, is on the faculty of the Physical Education Department at the State University of New York, Cortland. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in adapted physical education and elementary physical education. She has been working for more than a decade to improve the physical activity opportunities for preschool children with and without disabilities. Together with Renee McCall, she has written two books on conducting preschool physical activities, Moving with a Purpose: Developing Programs for Preschooler of All Abilities (2000) and Purposeful Play: Early Childhood Movement Activities on a Budget (2004), both published by Human Kinetics. In 2008 she completed a third book with co-author Craig Smith titled Active Play: Fun Physical Activities for Young Children and produced an accompanying DVD by the same title that shows children participating in 30 of the 52 physical activities in the book.

Diane has given more than 50 presentations and workshops on preschool physical activities to local, state, national, and international audiences. She is frequently asked to conduct workshops as part of local and state childhood obesity prevention initiatives. She is a past president of the National Consortium of Physical Education and Recreation for Individuals with Disabilities and past chair of the Adapted Physical Activity Council, a council of the American Association for Physical Activity and Recreation. In 2005 she was recognized as the National Professional of the Year in adapted physical education. A former elementary and high school physical education teacher, Diane is a committed advocate of inclusion.

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Nilda Cosco, Ph.D, is co-founder (with professor Robin Moore) of the Natural Learning Initiative (NLI) at the College of Design at North Carolina State University (NCSU). Here she serves as education specialist. She is also research associate professor in the College of Design at NCSU and former director of the Center for Universal Design, also at NCSU. Her works includes designing programming and researching outdoor environments for children with and without disabilities; developing training activities for designers, educators, and community members interested in creating high quality outdoor environments for children and families; developing printed and online dissemination of materials; and coordinating comprehensive projects in design, environmental intervention, training, and evaluation. She also teaches a course titled “Introduction to Environment and Behavior for Designers” in the College of Design. Nilda’s primary research interest is the impact of outdoor environments on child, and family health outcomes such as healthy nutrition, active lifestyles, attention functioning, and overall well-being, particularly as they relate to natural components of the built environment. She is involved in direct intervention and pre/post evaluation of outdoor improvement programs in childcare centers.

Nilda’s publications include the chapters titled “Developing Evidence-Based Design: Environmental Interventions For Healthy Development of Young Children in the Outdoors”and “Post Occupancy Evaluation of Kids Together Park: Universal Design for Healthy Communities,” both found in Open Space: People Space (2007). She is co-author of the chapter titled “Well-Being by Nature: Therapeutic Gardens for Children,” found in the Landscape Architecture Technical Information Series Forum on Therapeutic Garden Design (2005). Nilda has a degree in educational psychology from the Universidad del Salvador in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a Ph.D. in landscape architecture from the School of Landscape Architecture at Heriot-Watt University/Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland. 

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Janet Fulton, Ph.D, is an epidemiologist and team leader in the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity at The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. Before her appointment in 1998, she taught in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Texas, Houston and in the Department of Kinesiology at Texas Woman’s University. She was also a research associate at the Center for Epidemiologic Research at the Center for Health Promotion and Research Development at the University of Texas, Houston. Janet has published articles on such topics as assessing physical activity and attitudes in children, the levels of physical activity among elementary and middle school children during their physical education classes, and weight loss and weight gain prevention among youth. She recently examined the association between physical education participation and academic achievement in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study. Her research interests include the epidemiology of physical activity, nutrition, and chronic diseases; obesity, weight gain, and chronic diseases; the measurement and quantification of physical activity; and the promotion of physical activity and nutrition. Janet has a Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of Texas, Houston, School of Public Health.

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Sarah Lee, Ph.D, is the physical activity health scientist in the Division of Adolescent & School Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She provides content expertise on numerous documents, resources, surveillance studies, and CDC-funded programs related to youth physical activity and obesity prevention. Her interests include school policies and environmental influences on physical activity among youth, physical activity assessment, and the coordinated school health model applied to designing effective comprehensive physical activity programs for young people. Sarah is the lead author on the CDC’s Physical Education Curriculum Analysis Tool (PECAT)and the upcoming second edition of the CDC’s Guidelines for Schools to Promote Lifelong Healthy Eating and Physical Activity Among Young People.Sarah has a Ph.D in exercise and wellness education from Arizona State University.

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Marybeth Lima, Ph.D, is a professor in biological and agricultural engineering at Louisiana State University. She is a registered professional engineer and a certified playground safety inspector. She has worked with the Baton Rouge, LA, community for nine years to ensure that all kids have access to safe, fun, accessible playgrounds, which they kids also help to design. She believes that play is a right and not a privilege and that children are the best playground designers. These beliefs have guided her service-learning teaching and research work with elementary school and college students and the larger community. She is the recipient of the 2007 Thomas Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service-Learning, the 2005 Ernest A. Lynton Award for Faculty Professional Service & Academic Outreach, and the 2004 Gulf South Summit Award for Outstanding Contributions to Service-Learning in Higher Education. Marybeth writes and speaks widely on service-learning issues, is the co-author of the textbook Service-Learning: Engineering in Your Community, and co-author of Play On! Playground Learning Activities for Youth Fitness, published by the American Association for Physical Activity and Recreation (2008). She and her partner, Lynn Hathaway, enjoy swimming and playing with their animals.

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