Global TIES Newsletter - October 2025
Message from Director Florencia Lopez Boo
Dear colleagues, partners, and friends of Global TIES,
A year ago this week I was meeting the Global TIES team for the first time, arriving at my new office, and enjoying a beautiful autumn day in Washington Square. Today - despite the many new (and ongoing) challenges that our sector faces - I’m filled with the same hope, determination, and gratitude as I was that day in mid October 2024.
It has been an enormous honor to accept the Director position, following the stellar tenure of Professors Larry Aber and Hiro Yoshikawa, who successfully guided this center for a decade. The sense of responsibility in taking on their legacy and filling such big shoes is profound. Navigating these tumultuous times has been both humbling and invigorating, and only reaffirms my commitment to our main mission: making sure children, families, caregivers, and teachers in the most vulnerable places in the world are able to thrive and reach their potential.
The past 12 months have been characterized by growth, connection, and new opportunities - both personally and for the Center as a whole. We’ve expanded our portfolio to new countries and regions while also growing our research in new areas - including substance use among adolescents, child-friendly city initiatives, expanded school hours, and national-level policy evaluations.
Our team has had the privilege of sharing our work and building collaborations at four major international conferences (CIES, SRCD, Thrive, UKFIET) and with various policymaking and multilateral bodies, including most recently at several UNGA meetings. We also welcomed colleagues and partners to a handful of public events in New York - including last month’s “The Agency Summit” with The Agency Fund, and the launch of the Early Childhood Matters journal with the Van Leer Foundation in March - and have several more on the horizon. For example, we’re thrilled to be partnering with Theirworld to build the case for the first-ever International Finance Summit for Early Childhood during the IMF-WB 2026 Spring meetings. You will find more details in the sections below!
Last but not least, we are extremely fortunate to have secured $3.1 million in new grants in the past year, including support from J-PAL and the LEGO Foundation. And we’re thrilled to be able to open new postdoctoral positions in global research, inviting fresh talent to join us in advancing our mission.
This newsletter - the first from me! - offers a glimpse into the collaborations and ideas shaping our path forward. Here’s to another year of meaningful connection, collective learning, and courageous action. Thank you for your continued support and commitment to the work we do together.
Warmly,
Florencia Lopez Boo
Director, Global TIES for Children
Leveraging Cutting-Edge Research to Improve the Lives of Children and Families at Scale: Highlights of Our Current Initiatives
Albania | Evaluating Child-Friendly City Programs
Working with the NGO Qendra Marrëdhënie, Epoka University, and the City of Tirana, we are supporting the first-ever causal impact study of a child-friendly school streets initiative to understand the impacts of transforming streets around public primary schools into pedestrian- and child-friendly spaces.
Argentina & Uruguay | Education Policy Reforms Research
We are evaluating the long-term impacts of a 1990s preschool expansion in Uruguay on employment and wages in adulthood and of recent extended school hours on child and family outcomes in the Province of Buenos Aires.
Bangladesh | Follow-up of Our Prenatal Birth Cohort Study
We’ve received a 2.5-year follow-up grant from the LEGO Foundation for our prenatal birth cohort study - (iRRRd) - on intergenerational transmission of trauma and child development in contexts of adversity. This will allow us to undertake another crucial follow-up visit with our cohort of nearly 2,900 refugee and host community families when target children turn 3-years-old and reach toddlerhood.
Colombia & El Salvador | Supporting National Policymakers to Meet their Research Agendas
In Colombia, with IPA and the Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar (ICBF), we are co-leading a survey in five cities with 12-17 year-olds to identify risk factors associated with teenage addiction in order to inform ICBF’s preventive policies. At the same time, in El Salvador, we are providing expert advice for the mid-term evaluation of the National Early Childhood Policy launched in 2019.
Colombia & Ghana | Cross-Regional Collaboration
After launching capacity exchange networks of early-career child development scholars in Ghana and Colombia, the first annual, week-long, in-person methods workshop of our LEARN project was held with the Colombia cohort in late June. The Ghanaian equivalent happened at the end of July! A subset of scholars from both cohorts also participated in a Jacobs Foundation LEVANTE workshop in May and have submitted successful proposals with LEVANTE young scholars to continue regional knowledge exchange.
Haiti | Remote Learning Pilot
With J-PAL support, we are evaluating a remote learning pilot in Haiti aimed at improving foundational learning outcomes in crisis settings. This is being done in partnership with the Haitian NGO GHESKIO, the Haitian Government Agency Fonds d’ Assistance Economique et Sociale (FAES), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
Events of Note
Launch of Early Childhood Matters - March 2025
We collaborated with Van Leer Foundation to host nearly 60 people on NYU’s campus for the New York launch of the most recent edition of their flagship Early Childhood Matters journal.
TIES Turned Ten! - April 2025
More than 50 people joined us to celebrate our 10-year anniversary and commemorate TIES’s first decade under our co-founders, Larry and Hiro, and toast to our new Director, Florencia.
Dr. Aber received SRCD award - May 2025
Former co-Director Larry Aber received the award for Distinguished Contributions to Understanding International, Cultural, and Contextual Diversity in Child Development at the 2025 SRCD Biennial Meeting, in recognition of his many contributions to the field.
The Agency Summit @ NYU - September 2025
With The Agency Fund and NYU Office of the Provost, we co-hosted an exchange on how agency contributes to sustainable development outcomes. TIES team members on the agenda included Florencia Lopez Boo, Kate Schwartz, and Hirokazu Yoshikawa.
Voices from the Field: What We're Learning, Together
“Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, is currently experiencing one of the most severe security crises in its recent history: an estimated 90% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, is under gang control, with violence, kidnappings, and sexual assaults spreading beyond the region. In response to this, Global TIES for Children is very proud to be partnering with the IDB, FAES and GHESKIO to test the implementation of a remote learning program for families with children ages 4 to 6 that cannot attend school regularly.”
– Florencia Lopez Boo
Director, Global TIES for Children
“Collaborating with early-career scholars in Ghana and Colombia during the LEARN workshops was a reminder of the power of in-person exchange and relationship-building.”
– Lindsay Brown
Senior Research Scientist
“Our team’s ability to pivot from evaluating classroom interventions to remote learning pilots reflects our core strength: responsive, rigorous, and adaptable research in complex settings.”
– Kate Schwartz
Senior Research Scientist
“We focus on rethinking how research is conducted in fragile and crisis-affected settings. iRRRd works to bridge the gap between basic science methods and the realities of working in challenging environments, often by co-designing approaches with local partners, prioritizing ethical engagement, and making discovery science evidence more usable for policy and practice.”
– Alice Wuermli
Director of Research & Innovation
