Boger, Robert P. Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus Robert P. Boger received his B.A. in psychology from Cornell University and his Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Texas, Austin. He remained at the University of Texas as a member of the faculty in 1966. He joined Michigan State University in 1967 as an associate professor and director of MSU's Early Childhood Research Center, one of five national Head Start evaluation and research centers.

In 1970, Professor Boger became the founding director of the transdisciplinary Institute for Family and Child Study. He directed the IFCS until 1989. He was perhaps best known for his social support research models linking parents and teachers. His subsequent perinatal research into parent-to-parent transactional support for first-time parents (the Perinatal Positive Parenting Program) received the national Donna Stone Primary Prevention Award in 1984. Dr. Boger was president of the Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health and an active member of the SRCD and the American Psychological Association. He was named an American Council on Education Administration Fellow in 1972, interning on the president's staff at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Dr. Boger believed his most important work was with his graduate students and he was recognized for his undergraduate teaching of the ecology of human development. He was the author of approximately 40 journal articles, monographs, and research reports, and was co-author or co-editor of six books.