About the Dean

Dr. Peg Barratt was named Dean of The George Washington University Columbian College of Arts and Sciences in 2007. Since her arrival, she has been a strong proponent of robust student – faculty collaboration and advancing partnerships with such prestigious organizations as the Smithsonian Institution, Library of Congress, National Institutes of Health, and Folger Shakespeare Library. She is committed to working across the disciplines to encourage rigorous scholarly pursuits and a broad exposure to learning and analytical thinking. Through extensive outreach efforts, she also works to ensure alumni remain engaged in the life of the College and the University.  

Dr. Barratt, a specialist in the area of parent-child interaction with a focus on naturalistic field work, has a broad administrative background in both the higher education and government sectors. She served in leadership positions at the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and Michigan State University, where she was the director of the Institute for Children, Youth and Families. For 19 years, she was a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and served as department chair. During her tenure at Wisconsin – Madison, she was honored with a Distinguished Teaching Award. She had two long-term research stays at Osaka University in Japan.

Dr. Barratt is an alumna of GW’s graduate program in psychology and holds a doctorate in developmental psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She also earned master’s and bachelor’s degrees in psychology from Michigan State University. Dr. Barratt is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science; and her research has been published extensively in various scholarly journals, including Developmental Psychology, a publication for which she served as an Associate Editor.