Alison Steier is a licensed psychologist who serves as director of the Harris Institute at Southwest Human Development, the Birth to Five Helpline and its Fussy Baby service, and Arizona’s system of early childhood mental health consultation, known as Smart Support.

Alison earned her doctoral degree from George Mason University. She received advanced training in psychotherapy from Georgetown University, completed a pre-doctoral fellowship in clinical psychology at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital and was a visiting fellow at Boston’s Children’s Hospital. She holds a fellowship in infant mental health from Louisiana State University Medical Center and a postdoctorate in infant mental health from Tulane University Medical Center. She has been the lucky beneficiary of training with some of the country’s most prominent experts in mental health and early childhood, including T. Berry Brazelton, Charles Zeanah, and Joy Osofsky.

Alison is a frequent presenter on topics related to infant mental health and has published in the areas of mental health consultation and young children’s attachments to special inanimate objects (“transitional objects”).