Sandra Russ is Distinguished University Professor and Louis D. Beaumont University Professor at Case Western Reserve University. Her research has focused on understanding how pretend play is involved in child development and in child psychotherapy. She has worked to develop a measure of pretend play that assesses both cognitive and affective processes. She and her team of students have also carried-out a number of studies that have investigated the relationship between pretend play and areas of adaptive functioning such as creativity, coping, and emotional understanding. In addition, she has developed play intervention procedures to help children improve their play skills. She is the author of Pretend Play in Childhood: The Foundation of Adult Creativity (2013), American Psychological Association.

http://psychsciences.case.edu/faculty/sandra-russ/