Michael C Nagel

Biography

Associate Professor Michael Nagel’s research and teaching interests focus primarily on human development and the psychology of learning. His PhD research encompassed an international project that looked at the learning experiences of Australian and Canadian teenagers.

Prior to his arrival at USC, Dr Nagel spent time in the United States researching the developing pediatric brain with a particular interest in early and adolescent development and areas related to a sexually dimorphic brain. Dr Nagel has authored twenty-eight books focusing broadly on educational psychology, child and adolescent development and pediatric brain development.

These volumes of work have been written for any person whose professional or personal interests encompass child development, learning and parenting respectively. His books are housed and used by parents and students in libraries across more than 40 countries and in numerous universities including, but not limited to, University of California at Berkeley, Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, The Washington Library of Congress, University College London, Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University.

Aside from his teaching and research activity, Dr Nagel has done more than 100 keynote addresses and has also conducted workshops and seminars for teachers and parents at over 400 schools in Australia and abroad. He was selected by the Australian Middle Years of Schooling to be their national traveling scholar in 2012 and is a regular presenter for Generation Next which focuses on adolescent health and well-being. He has also been an invited guest on ‘TV New Zealand Breakfast’, ‘Sunrise, ‘A Current Affair’, ABC National, Channel 10Plus and ‘The Project’. 

Finally, Dr Nagel has also been a feature writer for the ‘The First Five Years’ online parenting platform and for ‘Jigsaw’ and the ‘Child’ series of magazines which collectively offers parenting advice to more than one million parents.

Professional memberships

• International Neuropsychological Society
• Society for Research in Child Development
• European Association for Developmental Psychology
• The Learning and Brain Society
• Queensland College of Teachers

Teaching areas

• Human Development and Learning
• The Psychology of Learning
• Managing the Learning Environment

Expert media commentary

Michael's specialist areas of knowledge include education, early learning, child and adolescent development, pediatric brain development, sex differences in behaviour and learning, the middle years of schooling, teacher education.