Paul Leseman obtained his MSc (major in psychology, minor in linguistics) at the University of Amsterdam (1985) and a PhD in the social sciences (cum laude), at the Erasmus University Rotterdam (1990). He was a postdoctoral research fellow of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences (1990-1995), a senior researcher and associate professor of educational sciences at the University of Amsterdam (1995-2002), and visiting scholar of early childhood education at the Free University of Berlin (2000-2003). He is a full professor of education, in particular learning disabilities and school problems of low income and minority children, at Utrecht University (2003-). He was scientific director of the Langeveld Institute (2004-2009), chair of the Department of Child, Family and Education Studies (2005-2009), and chair of the national PhD research school for developmental psychology and education ISED (2011-2012). He was principal investigator of the Dutch national cohort study pre-COOL (2009-2022) on the long-term effects of early childhood care and education on children’s development and school achievement (2009-2020), scientific coordinator of the European Union's FP7 project CARE (Curriculum and Quality Assessment and Impact Analysis of European Early Childhood Education and Care; 2014-2016) and the EU Horizon 2020 project ISOTIS (Inclusive Education and Social Support to Tackle Inequalities in Society; 2017-2019), and principal investigator of the EU Horizon 2020 project L2TOR (Social robots as dual language tutors for young children; 2016-2018). He is also principal investigator of the Dutch national Child Daycare Quality Monitor (LKK; 2017-2027) and co-coordinator of the cohort study EVENING (2019-2024) on the effectiveness of preschool education. In addition, he is member of the scientific advisory board to the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring at Durham University (since 2015), member of the scientific council of Bamberg University Graduate School of Social Sciences (BAGGS; since 2015), member of the scientific advisory board to the Leibniz-Institut für Bildungsverläufe (LIfBi; since 2017), member of the OECD Technical Advisory Group to the TALIS and Starting Strong Staff Surveys (since 2016), member of the international review committee of Norwegian educational research (UTDEVAL; 2016-2018), and advisor to UNESCO on curriculum and pedagogy of early childhood education (since 2022). Research publications concern emergent literacy and numeracy, bilingual development, development of executive functions, self-regulation and creativity, efficacy of preschool education programs, and adolescent literacy.