Vanessa LoBue is an associate professor of psychology and the director of the Child Study Center at Rutgers University–Newark. LoBue is also a mom. Combine these three demanding, fulfilling jobs, and you have someone who can speak with authority about infant and child development. And she does: LoBue is the author of the new book 9 Months In, 9 Months Out: A Scientist’s Tale of Pregnancy and Parenthood (Oxford University Press, 2019), and she writes a blog hosted by Psychology Today called The Baby Scientist, explaining the research on child development in understandable terms for the publication’s readership, many of them expectant parents or those with very young children. “I write about motherhood, what science tells us about what’s happening to a child at various points in development, and how that science translates to a real mom’s experiences,” says LoBue, the mother of two sons under the age of 4, Edwin and Charlie. She addresses a host of subjects, ranging from why children love repetition, to the impact of parental stress on a young child, to the efficacy of spanking. “Some of the time, you’ll get lots of science; some of the time, you’ll get lots of me. Most of the time, you’ll get a little bit of both.”