Policy & Advocacy > The Media Center > Dr. Susan Linn, Ed.D.
Dr.
Susan Linn, Ed.D.
Associate Director, The Media Center
slinn@jbcc.harvard.edu
Susan Linn, psychologist, writer, award-winning producer, and puppeteer, is Associate Director of the Media Center of Judge Baker Children’s Center; Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; and co-founder and director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. She has written extensively about the effects of media and commercial marketing on children. Her book, Consuming Kids, was praised in publications as diverse as The Wall Street Journal and Mother Jones. Combining her skills as a writer and performer with her role as a child therapist, Dr. Linn has written and appeared in a number of video programs designed to help children cope with issues ranging from mental illness to death and loss. She was recently awarded the American Psychological Association’s Presidential Citation for her work on behalf of children.
Dr. Linn lectures extensively on the impact of marketing to children and on the importance of creative play, both nationally and internationally. She has carried her advocacy to such media venues such as Good Morning America, Today, Sixty Minutes, Dateline, and the acclaimed documentary The Corporation. She has lectured about the impact of commercialism on children in throughout the USA and in Canada, Europe, Asia and South America.
Dr. Linn is internationally known for her innovative work using puppets in child psychotherapy. She pioneered this work at Children's Hospital Boston, where she used puppets to help children cope with their hospital experiences. She has lectured on the utilization of puppetry as a tool for psychotherapy in venues throughout North America, Europe, Israel, Japan, and the Republic of Georgia. She is continuing this work with the SPARKS Center, a day care center and after school program for children coping with medical problems, including those affected by and infected with HIV.
Her work has been featured on national television programs such as: Mister
Rogers' Neighborhood, Today, Good Morning America, Sixty Minutes, Weekend
World Tonight; radio programs such as NPR’s All Things Considered
and Marketplace; and in a series of nationally-syndicated public service
announcements addressing issues of importance to children. This Secret Should
Be Told, a program for children about sexual abuse that aired on WBZ-TV
(Boston's CBS affiliate) won a coveted ACT award and earned Dr. Linn a second
regional Emmy Award. With Family Communications, Inc. (the producers of
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood), Dr. Linn created an educational video series
entitled Different and the Same: Helping Children Identify and Prevent Prejudice.
This collection of nine videos, along with a teacher’s guide and training
tape, is being used in classrooms across the United States and has won numerous
awards, including the two top prizes from the International Communication
Film and Video Competition and the Media Award from the Association of Multicultural
Educators.
With a grant from the National Endowment for Children's Educational Television, the Ford Foundation and organizations, Dr. Linn created and produced the pilot episode for Willoughby's Wonders, a half-hour, live-action comedy/drama designed to help children acquire basic coping skills. In 1997, the pilot received an Emmy Award from the New England Chapter of the National Academy for Television Arts and Sciences for Best Children's Special.
A prolific writer, Dr. Linn’s articles have appeared in Newsweek, Knight-Ridder, the Boston Globe, and The American Prospect. Her commentaries can be heard on NPR’s MarketPlace.
Administrative Assistant:
Barbara B. Sweeny
Judge Baker Children’s Center
53 Parker Hill Avenue, Boston, MA 02120-3225
Phone: 617-278-4106 ~ Fax: 617-232-7343
Email: bsweeny@jbcc.harvard.edu