My research interests are fundamentally about how complex systems organize and change. I am interested in understanding these systems through the experimental analysis of cognitive development, in the statistical methods that one might use to uncover these processes, and in mathematical models of the processes of change.

The experimental exploration of cognitive development provides a fertile ground for acquiring a general understanding of how complex systems change (see Sheya & Smith, 2011). Human babies begin life unable to control their body in even the most rudimentary ways. Yet new patterns emerge as steady and unrelenting progress—from not reaching to reaching, from not walking to walking, from no words to language, to deception, to mathematical reasoning. Any theory of development must explain the origin of these new behaviors. In order to understand these origins my research examines the process of development itself, seeking to identify the sources of indeterminacy and their relation to sources of structure within the process of developmental change (the dynamics of development). Simply put, I believe that an explanation of development lies in an understanding of the process by which the everyday activities of children create change — both the universal attainments and the individual pathways.