About the Author

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In 2021, Mary Renck Jalongo co-edited a highly successful special issue of Early Childhood Education Journal on COVID-19 and published two articles on the topic. Articles from that Special Issue have been downloaded over 90,000 times to date. For 25 years, she served as editor-in-chief of Early Childhood Education Journal and continues as senior editor of Springer Nature's Educating the Young Child book series. Throughout her career, she has written, co-authored, or edited more than 40 books. Her professional journal articles have earned eight national awards for excellence in writing, including four EDPRESS awards. She is a professor emerita with 37 years of experience at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). where she was named the professor of year.Jyotsna Pattnaik is a professor of early childhood education at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) where she earned the Outstanding Professor Award from the College of Education and the Professors Around the World Award. In 2020-21, she co-edited a special issue of Early Childhood Education Journal on COVID-19, made three national presentations on the topic, served as a speaker on the topic for two webinars in India, and chaired one Master's thesis on the topic. She has guest edited two international focus issues of Childhood Education (ACEI), edited three books, and published over 30 articles/book chapters. In 2009, she was the recipient of the outstanding alumni scholar award from the College of Education and Communications, Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). Her current projects include two empirical articles on the effects of COVID-19 on early childhood education and care.