Nirmala Rao is Professor, Faculty of Education and Director of Graduate Studies & Associate Dean, Graduate School, The University of Hong Kong. She is a Developmental and Chartered (Educational) Psychologist who is internationally recognized for her research on early child development and education in Asian cultural contexts. This research has focused on the development, evaluation, and dissemination of evidence-based programmes directed at children in the early childhood stage of development with the objective of finding out why they have the effects that they do.