Dr. Knauer is currently involved in evaluations of two programs. The first is a school readiness project in Kenya. For this program, Dr. Knauer worked with colleagues to adapt a dialogic reading training program, which teaches parents skills to engage in conversations with their children while they read books together. A short follow up of the program found that it was successful at improving parent's frequency of reading and the quality of their reading interactions with their children. The program also improved children's familiarity with images from the books, and the vocabulary scores of children whose primary caregivers were illiterate. A long-term (2 year) follow up is underway to examine effects on children's school readiness and preliteracy skills.Dr. Knauer is also engaged in an evaluation of a national school feeding program in Armenia. Currently, about 20% of children in Armenia experience food insecurity. While there exists a national school lunch program, this meal is provided to prekindergarten children at the end of their school day (around 11 a.m.). A trial program is underway to provide children with a small meal in the morning, when they arrive at school, that may complement breakfast that they have received at home or provide a nutritional base if they did not have breakfast. The goal of this program is to determine if providing this morning meal improves children's ability to learn — such as their problem solving, concentration, and memory skills — as well as their school readiness (i.e. vocabulary) by the end of the school year.Finally, Dr. Knauer is beginning a series of studies to examine the effects of community programs that aim to improve the mental health of refugee children, how experiences of trauma have affected young refugee children's development, and ways that parenting programs may blend mental health and engagement to improve the wellbeing of both parents and children.