Roberta Berns is a Professor Emerita at the University of California, Irvine, as well as Saddleback College, where she founded and chaired the Human Development Department. Berns also was a student of renowned developmental psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner at Cornell University. She lives in California with her husband, a professor of bioengineering. They have two children (one, an English professor and the other, a professor of neuroscience) and two grandchildren.