MEDIA CONTACT
Gina Davis, gdavis@zerotothree.org
WASHINGTON, DC – ZERO TO THREE, the leading nonprofit dedicated to ensuring all babies and toddlers have a strong start in life, today proudly announced its 2024-26 Fellowship Class, welcoming 20 exceptional early childhood leaders from across the U.S. and around the world, to its premier leadership development initiative.
Selected from a pool of 225 applicants, these exceptional Fellows represent a range of professional specialties, including infant and early childhood mental health clinical services, program administration, research and early childhood policy. They serve in urban and rural communities across the U.S., Canada, Kenya, Peru and Uruguay.
“This diverse group of leaders is poised to drive impactful change in early childhood systems,” said Lynette Aytch, director of ZERO TO THREE’s Leadership Development Institute. “Their dedication to fostering equity and innovation will significantly benefit families, infants and young children.”
The 18-month Fellowship is designed to support the next generation of early childhood leaders in embracing a courageous, just and collaborative approach to transforming programs, systems and policies to give babies and toddlers a strong start in life.
“Each fellow comes with a transformative vision and a strong commitment to driving bold innovations that will help babies thrive and build a brighter future for all,” Matthew Melmed, executive director of ZERO TO THREE. “Collectively, this class brings a rich diversity of knowledge, leadership experiences and organizational affiliations that will spark innovation and momentum as we advance equitable solutions across the early childhood field.”
A signature component of the Fellowship experience is the advancement of an aspirational Vision for Change, which Fellows propose in their fellowship application, Aytch said.
“The goal is to support the Fellows in developing their Visions for Change into actionable plans,” Aytch said. “This work is done in collaboration with partners, collaborators and allies to move the vision forward. The fellowship experience includes intensive retreats, monthly strategic sessions and mentoring to deepen professional relationships and inspire each other in tangible ways to give babies and toddlers what they need to thrive.”
Upon completion of the Fellowship, the class will join more than 300 national and international leaders from previous cohorts as members of the esteemed Academy of ZERO TO THREE Fellows Alumni Network.
The 2024-26 Fellowship Class
Dr. Cecilia Amigo (Uruguay) is a certified Developmental, Individual-differences, Relationship-based (DIR) Floortime therapist and physician specializing in child and adolescent psychiatry. She is the coordinator of the outpatient clinic specializing in autism at Centro Hospitalario Pereira Rossell, the main pediatric hospital in Uruguay, and at the Armed Forces Hospital, where she is head of child psychiatry.
Tyler Choate (Minnesota) is a doctoral student and community-based researcher at the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota. His research explores how macro-level adversities—such as poverty, violence and discrimination—affect development, with a focus on how family and community storytelling can support development and mitigate stress.
Dr. Morgan Crossman (Vermont) is the executive director of Building Bright Futures, Vermont’s Early Childhood State Advisory Council and Early Childhood Data and Policy Center. She leads vision and strategic planning for the state’s early childhood system and monitors its progress, centralizes data to inform decision-making and is the primary advisor to the governor, state legislature and federal delegation on child well-being from prenatal to age 8 and their families.
Jamesetta Ross Diggs (Minnesota) is the program manager for social justice at African Career Education and Resources Inc. As an early childhood educator and certified parent coach, she advocates for systems change that empowers minority communities and families. She is the founder of Social Learning for Littles, a parent empowerment organization that creates culturally diverse learning resources based on brain science to foster positive parent-child interactions.
Frances Einterz (Indiana) is the senior director of early childhood equity initiatives at the Policy Equity Group, where she supports the development and implementation of early childhood public policy at the federal and state levels. Most recently, she helped develop Michigan’s PreK for All Roadmap and supported efforts to inform Indiana’s revision of its quality rating and improvement system.
Dr. Ellie Erickson (North Carolina) is a pediatrician in the clinic and the newborn nursery at Duke Children’s Primary Care. As the inaugural Early Relational Health Fellow for Reach Out and Read, she is a central figure in national discussions on this topic. She co-leads the Carolinas Collaborative, a network of academic pediatric residency programs promoting advocacy education in pediatric residency programs.
Dr. Sandhyaa Iyengar (Philadelphia) is a board-certified developmental and behavioral pediatrician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She specializes in diagnostic evaluations and ongoing care for children with developmental disabilities, including autism spectrum disorder and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, as well as developmental monitoring for young children with delays and genetic conditions.
Cindy La (Illinois) is the director of children and youth services at the Chinese American Service League. La previously served as executive director of education for a nonprofit, where she helped expand programming in early childhood, youth services and adult education in Chicago. She specializes in behavioral play therapy with school-age children and supporting family engagement.
Stephanie McNerney (Virginia) is a neurodevelopmental and behavioral pediatric nurse practitioner at the University of Virginia Children’s Neurodevelopmental and Behavioral Pediatrics program. She founded and serves as medical director of the Village Care Program, which supports children in the child welfare system. She also leads the Early Development Clinic and International Development Clinic, focusing on early diagnosis and support for at-risk infants and refugee children.
Dr. Julia Carranza Neira (Peru) is a psychiatrist, trauma psychotherapist and assistant professor of psychiatry at the Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas School of Medicine. Dr. Neira is a member of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and a researcher at the Global Collaboration on Traumatic Stress Studies.
Jeana Nichols (Washington State) is the program planning and regional engagement manager for the Early Head Start program at Eastern Washington University. She specializes in early childhood and family services, community health and higher education. Nichols focuses on streamlining governance policies, planning community outreach events, leading health advisory committees and fostering partnerships with local constituencies, including parent volunteers and community agencies.
Rebecca O’Neill (Virginia) is a licensed clinical social worker, certified autism specialist and clinical director of Axis Mundi Child and Family Therapy. She supports neurodivergent children and their families with holistic and accessible interventions. Inspired by her own child’s experience, she founded Danny’s Walk, a grassroots advocacy organization focused on educating families, communities and legislators about the dangers of autism-related wandering and supporting legislation that addresses the needs of the neurodivergent community.
Danielle Rice (Michigan) is a licensed clinical social worker and is endorsed as an Infant Mental Health Mentor-Clinical. She is director of workforce inclusion and endorsement at the Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health. As a dual-title Ph.D. candidate, she focuses on the challenges faced by Black professionals in the field to develop ways to address and heal the harm caused by these challenges.
Danielle Rivera (California) is a children’s service administrator and a licensed clinical social worker at the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services. She has 13 years of experience supporting children of all ages, specializing in ages 0 to 5, and their families, with the goal of keeping children safe.
Dr. Lisa Schlueter (Colorado) leads the Early Childhood Mental Health Unit at the Colorado Department of Early Childhood. She directs several programs and has been developing and implementing infant and early childhood mental health strategies under the Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five for the past five years.
Cynthia Turrietta (Washington State) is the director of programs at Open Arms Perinatal Services. As a bilingual professional, she bridges language barriers to ensure comprehensive support for families by designing and implementing culturally responsive community-based programs during pregnancy, birth and the early postpartum period.
Nicole Tuzi (Canada) is the senior training and education manager at Infant and Early Mental Health Promotion, a program at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Tuzi develops training and learning experiences and collaborates with various professions across multiple sectors to better support practitioners working with infants, young children and their families.
Nat Nadha Vikitsreth (Illinois) is a nationally recognized award-winning decolonized therapist and facilitator, a trans-rights activist and host of the Come Back to Care podcast. As founder of Come Back to Care, her decolonized approach to pediatric and family mental health earned her the ZERO TO THREE Emerging Leadership Award. Vikitsreth also provides political education and healing support to youth organizers on the stolen land of the Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi Nations (Chicago).
Lynda Chemtai Waiyaki (Kenya) is the co-founder and director of Cradles to Crayons Kindergarten, where she leads a team in designing and implementing early years education programs. She focuses on fostering developmental milestones through individualized educational plans, parental involvement and community outreach.
Alison White (Maryland) is the lead child mental health therapist in the Preschool and Child Outpatient Clinic at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. She also provides clinical supervision to newly licensed clinicians and master’s-level student interns. She recently authored the chapter, “Dance Mode and Dragons: How Family Makes Us Who We Are,” in the forthcoming The Psychgeist of Pop Culture: Bluey.
