WestEd's Bo De Long-Cotty is a developmental psychologist with more than 20 years of research and development experience in PreK-12 social-emotional and cognitive development and education.

De Long-Cotty has conducted extensive work in youth development and resiliency; health, prevention, and intervention; character education; developmentally appropriate product design and practices (e.g., toys, games, books, activity kits, software); evaluation and assessment; research in educational and instructional technology; teaching; and curriculum development.

Since 1991, De Long-Cotty has worked for WestEd, where she currently serves as Director of several projects in two WestEd programs - Health and Human Development; and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Until recently, De Long-Cotty served as Director of the Learning and Teaching with Technology initiative for the WestEd Regional Technology Education Consortium.

As part of these programs, De Long-Cotty's work includes developing resiliency and character education programs and curriculum; evaluating science and mathematics programs, curricula, and teacher professional development; developing curricula; evaluating and reviewing technology-mediated curricula (youth development, math, science, technology, reading, music, literacy, and health); evaluating the impact of youth development and prevention programs in schools and community-based organizations; providing information and resources to teachers and families to promote community/home involvement in education; and evaluating and developing parent and teacher professional development programs and projects.

De Long-Cotty also works as designer of preschool through sixth-grade educational content and play (e.g., animation, chapter and activity books; computer, online, and table games) for Life’s Building Blocks, a San Diego-based character education company. In addition, she has created developmentally appropriate pre- to middle-school social and educational content (health and fitness, social development, reading, music, and mathematics) for Alligator Planet, a San Francisco-based film and animation studio.

She has served as a multimedia curriculum and product designer and character and story developer for language arts, math, and science for Disney Ed Studio and for Holt, Rinehart, and Winston Publishers. In addition, she provided a formative review of character and story development and designed take-home activity kits for GALAXY Classroom Science and Language Arts – a multimedia, K-5 educational program.

De Long-Cotty received a BA in fine arts and psychology from Purdue University, an MA in developmental psychology from Teachers’ College/Columbia University, and a PhD in developmental psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.