UC Irvine Professor Wins $1 Million Swiss Research Prize

UC Irvine’s Greg Duncan, a leading national scholar in the field of early childhood education, has been awarded the 2013 Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize for his groundbreaking work on the lasting effects of poverty on child development.

Bestowed by the Zurich-based Jacobs Foundation, the honor comes with 1 million Swiss francs, worth approximately $1.09 million.

“I am deeply honored and excited that this prize will help launch new research initiatives that I’m planning,” Duncan said in a statement on the UC Irvine Web site.

“Low-income children enter kindergarten far behind high-income children in terms of concrete literacy and math skills, and they have more difficulty paying attention in class. My research seeks a better understanding of why this is the case.”

Duncan, a distinguished professor of education, will use the funds to support work with neuroscientists, developmental psychologists and economists assessing how poverty-reducing income supplements over a child’s first three years of life affect parenting and the child’s cognitive development, UC Irvine said. The experimental study will involve 1,000 families across the U.S.