Annual RIE® Infant/Toddler Conference
The Annual RIE Conference For Parents and Professionals is held each Spring and includes a full spectrum of speakers to inspire adults building relationships with very young children to carry on both enlivened and fulfilled.
Save the date as the 2023 Annual Conference is tentatively scheduled for March 11, 2023 and will be offered both virtually and in-person. Details will be forth coming and registration will open in the late Fall of 2022.
Our 2022 Keynote Presentations
Opening Keynote: Unlocking Every Child’s Potential: Educaring to Build a Parent Nation, Dana Suskind, M.D.

Dana Suskind is Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics, Director of the Pediatric Cochlear Implant Program, and Founder and Co-Director of the TMW Center for Early Learning and Public Health at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Thirty Million Words: Building a Child’s Brain (Dutton, 2015) and the forthcoming Parent Nation: Unlocking Every Child’s Potential, Fulfilling Society’s Promise (Dutton, 2022).
Motivated by the research that points to the powerful role that parents and caregivers play in enhancing children’s foundational brain development, the TMW Center develops evidence-based interventions to support their efforts. Dr. Suskind and her team strive to generate not only a population-level shift in parents’ knowledge of healthy brain development, but in public support for policies and practices that will enable parents to put that knowledge into practice.
Closing Keynote: Justice in the First 1,000 Days: Attending to the 3Ps of Protecting, Promoting, and Preserving, Dr. Iheoma U. Iruka
Framed through the 3Ps Framework of Protecting, Promoting, and Preserving, this presentation identifies how families and babies are experiencing the dual pandemics – COVID-19 and racism and leveraging their cultural wealth. This means that we must attend to child and family healthy supports, economic stability and mobility as well as equitable access, experiences, and outcomes for young children and their families. Participants will be asked to examine how they protect babies and families from trauma and stress, promote their health, wealth, and educational excellence, and preserve their cultural identity, traditions, and language. This is especially pressing for Black families and other minoritized families. Participants will be asked to engage in the uncomfortable truths while recognizing the opportunity for transformation the early care and education to meet the needs of children, families, educators, and communities.
Past RIE® Conference Keynote Speakers
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2020 KEYNOTE Judyth O. Weaver, Ph.D. Knowing Ourselves More; Growing our Babies Better |
2020 KEYNOTE Dr. Junlei Li The Many Ways of Caring That Make a Difference, Here and Now |
2019 KEYNOTE Dr. Tina Payne Bryson The Yes Brain |
Past Keynote Speakers
2018 – Sue Bredekamp 2017 – Dr. Allan Schore 2016 – Lou Cozolino 2015- Stuart Brown 2014- Dimitri A. Christakis 2013- Deborah J. Leong 2012- Alison Gopnik 2011- Alicia F. Lieberman 2010- Sir Richard Bowlby 2009- J. Ronald Lally
Listen to an excerpt from our 2018 Conference Keynote Sue Bredekamp and her talk titled “Magda: Poet and Prophet”
Or checkout the 2020 Closing Keynote from Dr. Junele Li
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