Ellen A. Wartella (born October 16, 1949, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) is a leading scholar of the role of media in children's development.
Previous conferences examined parenting in the age of digital technology and racial and ethnic differences in children and adolescents' use of media.
She has testified before the U.S. Senate in an inquiry by Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) on a children and media research act, twice before the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Telecommunications, and before the Federal Trade Commission.
In May 2015, at an education conference in Washington, D.C., Wartella discussed a recent survey she led of about 1,000 preschool teachers, in a sampling that included schools serving a range of socioeconomic levels.
Wartella revealed that from 2012 to 2014, the number of preschool teachers with tablet computers in their classrooms nearly doubled, rising from 29 to 55 percent.
[11] Wartella's studies include data that shows the changing ways that parents are coming to terms with a world where online media is ubiquitous.
[13] Formerly chair of the Front-of-Package Marketing study committee of the Institute of Medicine for the National Science Foundation, she serves on the National Educational Advisory Board of the Children's Advertising Review Unit of the Council of Better Business Bureaus and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Children Youth and Families, as well as a Scientific Advisory Board Member of Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development.
She recently served on the Institute of Medicine's Panel Study on Food Marketing and the Diets of Children and Youth (2006).