Melissa M. Burnham

Melissa M. Burnham is a Professor and Department Chair of Human Development, Family Science, and Counseling at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her Ph.D. is in Human Development from the University of California, Davis, where she learned positivist approaches to studying infants and young children. Dr. Burnham’s research interests involve the intersection of children and contexts (e.g., sleep development within families; children and pedagogy in early care and education settings). Dr. Burnham holds an endorsement in Infant Mental Health as a Research/Faculty Mentor and strives to hold the strengths of the child at the forefront in her work. She is committed to actively learning critical pedagogies and methods and unlearning oppressive methodologies and practices that have dominated the field and her consciousness.

Publications

Confronting Bias in Early Childhood Teacher Preparation: A Journey of Reflection and Transformation
Confronting Bias in Early Childhood Teacher Preparation: A Journey of Reflection and Transformation
Melissa C. Walter, Ruby Batz, Melissa M. Burnham, Lisa B. Fiore. © 2024. 33 pages.
This chapter chronicles the transformative journey of a group of early childhood education (ECE) teacher educators as they critically examined the construction of early childhood...