Cynthia Arraya Wiltshire

Hi, I'm Cindy.

I am an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education in the Department of Teacher Education at The University of Texas at El Paso. 

As director of the Wiltshire Lab for Teachers and Children, I study early childhood educator workforce well-being, thinking particularly about measures of perceived and physiological stress and their association with sociodemographic factors and child outcomes of executive function and language development. 

I received my doctoral degree in Early Childhood Education from Teachers College, Columbia University in May of 2021. 

While at Teachers College, I worked as a member of the NEED (Neurocognition, Early Experience, and Development) Lab under the direction and guidance of Dr. Kimberly G. Noble, MD, PhD, Professor of Neuroscience and Education. In this role, I supported the Baby's First Years (BFY) study, a revolutionary randomized controlled trial which investigates the potential cash transfers to new mothers may have on the development of their children during the first three years of life. 

As well, I continue to work with the Building Understanding of Developmental Differences across Years (BUDDY) team in the NEED Lab, seeking to follow 200 children through the first three years of their life understanding how brain function, language, and memory develops during this important period. As a part of this study, my colleagues and I are investigating factors that contribute to infant screen exposure and use in this sample population. 

I am a fortunate graduate of the University of Virginia (BA, Biology), New York University (MA, Childhood Education), and Teachers College, Columbia University (MS, Neuroscience & Education; Ed.D., Early Childhood Education). 

I am most proud to say I was also a 20-year career educator before returning to graduate school. In this capacity I worked with a broad range of children and families at various stages of their educational experiences – from upper school to nursery school. My years as a classroom teacher offered me the opportunity to recognize that the most critical years of brain architecture and learning occur long before kindergarten entry. These years also helped to shape the research questions I ask and goals I aim toward, believing that for children to be best prepared to achieve later in life, their first years of life and school ought to be spent in settings that preference the social and emotional over and above the academic or intellectual.