Maria Kroupina is an assistant professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Global Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, at the University of Minnesota and is affiliated faculty at the Institute of Child Development and Center for Neurobehavioral Development. Her chief interest is building a research-based clinical practice that includes assessment and intervention for children who have experienced traumatic stress, including abuse and/or neglect, the loss of biological parents, or an orphanage stay. She was awarded a Zero To Three fellowship to develop this program for internationally adopted children.

Current funded research includes:

• A study on the nutritional status of recently arrived internationally adopted children (PI: Michael Georgieff)
• Collaborative work as a co-investigator regarding recovery from early life stress in children adopted from institutions (PI: Megan Gunnar)
• Neurobehavioral correlates of early deprivation (PI: Megan Gunnar)
• Postnatal choline supplementation in children with prenatal alcohol exposure (PI: Jeff Wozniak)
• Acute versus delayed iron status and anemia in cognition (PI: Chandy John)

Dr. Kroupina earned her Ph.D. at the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota. Her master's degree in clinical psychology was awarded by the Department of Psychology at Moscow State University (Moscow, Russia). She has additional professional training in family systems therapy (Moscow Center for Marriage and Family Therapy) and attachment disturbances (Tulane University).She also is working to build clinical programs for high-risk orphaned children in Kazakhstan and Russia with the Spoon Foundation and does education for parent groups such as Haiti In Our Hearts in northern Minnesota.

In February 2012 Dr. Kroupina traveled to Nizhny Novgorod, Russia to present a week-long seminar for Firefly titled “Helping Children with a History of Early Deprivation and Trauma: How to Assess Mental Health and Support Foster Families as Children Transition to Their Homes.”