Brianna McMillan, PhD | Morse Scholar Alumni
Morse Scholar Alumni 2013–2016
Current Position
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Smith College
The Little Lab
Contact
About
Brianna McMillan is interested in how children’s everyday environments shape their learning and language development. Using experimental studies, observational methods, and secondary data analyses, her research explores how children learn during interactions with their caregivers and how environmental factors, such as background noise affect children’s learning. She is deeply interested in understanding how we can leverage our understanding of how children learn in order to promote educational equality for all children. She uses an interdisciplinary approach to bridge cognitive, developmental, social, and educational psychology in order to understand the mechanisms that contribute to children’s learning.
McMillan received a bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of Arizona, a doctorate in cognitive psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and completed an interdisciplinary postdoctoral research fellowship at Temple University in the psychology and the early childhood education departments. Her research has previously been supported by research grants from the NIH’s National Institute of Child Health and Development, Institute of Educational Sciences, Bezos Family Foundation, and the Morse Society. She teaches courses in Psychology on topics related to child and cognitive development, as well as introductory psychology.
Education
| 2007 | BS | Psychology | University of Arizona, |
| 2017 | PhD | Cognitive Psychology | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| 2013–2016 | Morse Scholar | Major Professor: Jenny Saffran, PhD | Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| 2019 | Postdoctoral | Psychology and Early Childhood Education | Temple University |
In the News
- Background Noise Hinders Children’s Ability to Learn Words
November 11, 2021 - Smith College Welcomes New Faculty Members
September 21, 2020 - Why Quiet Is Important for Kids’ Learning
July 22, 2016
Selected Publications
Masek, L. R., Edgar, E. V., McMillan, B. T. M., Todd, J. T., Golinkoff, R. M., Bahrick, L. E., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2024). Building language learning: Relations between infant attention and social contingency in the first year of life. Infant behavior & development, 75, 101933. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2024.101933
Masek, L. R., Weiss, S. M., McMillan, B. T. M., Paterson, S. J., Golinkoff, R. M., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2023). Contingent conversations build more than language: How communicative interactions in toddlerhood relate to preschool executive function skills. Developmental science, 26(3), e13338. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13338
McMillan, B. T., & Saffran, J. R. (2016). Learning in Complex Environments: The Effects of Background Speech on Early Word Learning. Child development, 87(6), 1841–1855. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12559
Mahr T, McMillan BT, Saffran JR, Ellis Weismer S, Edwards J. (2015) Anticipatory coarticulation facilitates word recognition in toddlers. Cognition. 142:345-50. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2015.05.009.