Richard M. Lerner is the Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science and the Director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University. He went from kindergarten through Ph.D. within the New York City public schools, completing his doctorate at the City University of New York in 1971 in developmental psychology. Lerner has more than 800 scholarly publications, including 90 authored or edited books. He was the founding editor of the Journal of Research on Adolescence and of Applied Developmental Science. He is currently the Editor of Review of General Psychology, the flagship journal of Division 1 of the American Psychological Association (APA). Lerner was a 1980-81 fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the APA, and the Association for Psychological Science (APS). He is the 2010 recipient of the Society for Research on Adolescence John P. Hill Memorial Award for Life-Time Outstanding work; the 2013 APA Division 7 Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society; the 2014 APA Gold Medal for Life Achievement in the Application of Psychology; the 2015 APA Division 1 Ernest R. Hilgard Lifetime Achievement Award for distinguished career contributions to general psychology; the 2016 International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development Award for the Applications of Behavioral Development Theory and Research; the 2017 Society for Research in Child Development Distinguished Contributions to Public Policy and Practice in Child Development Award; the 2020 APS James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award winner for lifetime outstanding contributions to applied psychological research; and the 2021 Society for the Study of Human Development Distinguished Lifetime Career Award.

Prior to joining Tufts University, he was on the faculty at The Pennsylvania State University, Michigan State University, and Boston College, where he was the Anita L. Brennan Professor of Education and the Director of the Center for Child, Family, and Community Partnerships. During the 1994-95 academic year, Lerner held the visiting, Tyner Eminent Scholar Chair in the Human Sciences at Florida State University. Lerner is a past member of the Advisory Board of the John Templeton Foundation (JTF) and has received grants for his research on character development among children, adolescents, and young adults, both within the U.S. and around the world, from JTF, the Templeton World Charity Foundation, and the Templeton Religion Trust. Lerner also served on the Board of Directors of the Military Child Education Coalition for 10 years and still serves on their Scientific Advisory Board. In February 2023, Pope Francis reappointed Lerner to a second five-year term as a Corresponding Member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

Lerner is known for his theoretical, methodological, and empirical work on the role of character on positive youth development, on the contributions made by children, adolescents, and young adults to civil society and democracy, and for his professional leadership in advancing both the science of character development and the design and analysis of tools useful for evaluating character education programs around the world. With Professor Michael D. Matthews of the United States Military Academy at West Point, he edited the 2024 two-volume Routledge International Handbooks of Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Character Development.

He is married to Dr. Jacqueline V. Lerner, Professor in the Department of Applied Developmental and Educational Psychology in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. They live in Wayland, Massachusetts. Their children are Justin, a director, screenwriter, and producer, and his wife, Sarah, a novelist, screenwriter, and librettist, Blair, an advertising executive, and her husband, Jamie, a contractor, and Jarrett, an author and illustrator of children’s books and an editor, and his wife, Danni, an entrepreneur and concierge business owner. Rich and Jackie have six grandchildren, Harper Rose Ramsey, Dylan Maxwell Ramsey, Bodie Anthony Ramsey, Isla Terese Lerner, River Rae Lerner, and Soleia J Lerner.