Kathleen Clarke-Pearson

Dr. Kathleen Clarke-Pearson is a retired general pediatrician in North Carolina with a longstanding interest in media and its effects on children and adolescents. She is a graduate of Columbia University Teachers College in Manhattan with a master’s degree in Childhood Education.

Dr. Clarke-Pearson taught elementary school for five years in Virginia, Ohio, and North Carolina. Over the ensuing years, she pursued a medical degree at UNC Chapel Hill and trained in pediatrics at Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Clarke-Pearson has worked with many community groups for over 15 years addressing the negative and positive impact of media on child and teen health. She served as the chair of the NC Pediatric Society Committee on Media and as a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Council on Media and Communications. Both organizations work to enhance parents’ understanding of the powerful effects of media on infants’, children’s, and teens’ health.

Dr. Clarke-Pearson co-authored a clinical report on social media, published in the April 2011 edition of our journal Pediatrics. She is a former board member of the Raleigh-based child advocacy group NC Child, which works on public policy issues related to North Carolina children’s welfare. From 2015 to 2021, she served on the AAP’s Committee on Federal Government Affairs in Washington, D.C. Dr. Clarke-Pearson is currently an ambassador for NC Child, a data-driven and policy-oriented voice for North Carolina’s children. She remains an active member of the NC Pediatric Society.

She has a strong interest in early childhood education and in working with NC Child to promote policies at the local and state levels that embrace the challenge of addressing the current early childhood education crisis in our state. She has been married for 53 years and is the mother of four grown children and four grandchildren.