March 5, 2026
To help celebrate the 60th anniversary of FPG, we will be looking back at stories that highlight FPG’s history, its people, and some of the incredible work accomplished within the Institute over the past six decades. This piece recounts FPG's early growth from the seeds John F. Kennedy planted the month before he was assassinated.
March 3, 2026
Executive functions are well-established predictors of academic and social outcomes in neurotypical children. Because it was unclear whether these same associations are true for children with autism spectrum disorder, a research team, using a multimeasurement approach to executive function skills, set out to find the answer.
February 25, 2026
In her most recent project—IDEAL PARTNERs—FPG Faculty Fellow Brianne Tomaszewski is collaborating with FPG Senior Research Scientist Ann Sam and FPG Senior Implementation Specialist Wendy Morgan to address barriers to employment through the development of advanced technology.
February 23, 2026
Thelma Harms, former director of curriculum development at FPG and a pioneering early childhood educator and researcher who helped define quality in early childhood classrooms worldwide, died on Feb. 15, 2026, in Los Angeles. She was 100.
February 20, 2026
FPG's Hsiu-Wen Yang and Wendy Morgan are among a group of researchers at UNC to receive the most recent Translating Innovative Ideas for the Public Good (TIIP) Awards. Their work will focus on using artificial intelligence to help early childhood educators plan and adapt learning activities for children with disabilities.
February 19, 2026
Recognizing the long-standing gap between research and classroom practice in special education, researchers at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute have launched “Integrating AI and Evidence-Based Practices to Enhance Postsecondary Special Educators’ Preparation for Supporting Autistic Students.”
February 16, 2026
How does the learning environment foster a sense of belonging for every child? How does a teacher’s silence empower a child’s voice? These questions guided a recent site study in Japan, where FPG's Jani Kozlowski, partnered with Ryutaro Shintani, an assistant professor at Women’s College of Liberal Arts in Kyoto.
February 9, 2026
UNC School of Education faculty members Dorothy Espelage and Marisa Marraccini, in collaboration with Nationwide Children’s Hospital and additional partners, will lead NC efforts in a groundbreaking study aimed at reducing adolescent suicide-related risk through school-based prevention programs. Espelage is a faculty fellow at FPG.
February 5, 2026
Ximena Franco-Jenkins is a Senior Research Scientist at FPG and Co-Director of FPG's National Implementation Research Network. With more than 20 years of experience in research evaluation and implementation science, her work focuses on high-quality dual language programs, enhancing socio-emotional and academic outcomes for multilingual learners, and improving early childhood education quality.
February 3, 2026
The McKinney Scholars Program, a 9-week paid summer internship, at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute is now accepting applications for its 2026 summer cohort—the application deadline is Friday, February 27, 2026, at 5:00 pm.
January 29, 2026
A new article from UNC highlights how Brianne Tomaszewski, a faculty fellow at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute and assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine’s psychiatry department and Carolina’s TEACCH Autism Program, goes the extra mile to help new moms prioritize their well-being.
January 27, 2026
UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2026 Thelma Harms Early Childhood Education Award—Ximena Franco-Jenkins, a senior research scientist at FPG, and Noreen Yazejian, FPG’s associate director for research, who is also a senior research scientist.
January 21, 2026
Thanks to an innovative collaboration between two units at FPG, stronger and more expanded behavioral health resources will be available for youth and families across the state of Virginia. FPG’s NIRN and Impact Center have partnered to merge their practice models, tools, and resources for the Virginia Evidence-Based Practices Transformation Zone project.
January 14, 2026
Registration is now open for the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute's 26th annual International Early Childhood Inclusion Institute, which takes place May 19-21, 2026 (in-person and hybrid) and June 24-25 (virtual only). The event is designed for anyone caring for or teaching young children (from birth to age eight) with disabilities in inclusive environments.
January 12, 2026
Jani Kozlowski is a technical assistance specialist with the Early Childhood TA Center within the Trohanis Technical Assistance Projects at FPG. As part of our FPG profile series, we recently spoke with Kozlowski to learn more about her work.
January 7, 2026
In this follow-up story, see what the 2025 Thelma Harms Early Childhood Education Award recipients, FPG's Chih-Ing Lim and Megan Vinh are working on now. They will give two presentations at the Inclusive Preschool Symposium 2026 on January 22 in Singapore.
January 4, 2026
The groundbreaking Abecedarian Project launched in 1972 at FPG. And while the project has been critically important in supporting the value of early care and education programs, there has been a lack of implementation data to highlight which elements were most impactful. A new mixed methods study of the project aimed to address this.
December 15, 2025
In this year’s impact report, you will get a glimpse of the crucial work being done here by our talented and dedicated scientists, specialists, scholars, and staff across a broad range of disciplines, including autism and developmental disabilities, child health and development, early care and education, and more.
December 8, 2025
Melissa Lippold, PhD, a faculty fellow at FPG, is an associate professor at the UNC School of Social Work. Her work informs the development of family-based interventions to strengthen family relationships and promote adolescent and parent well-being. Learn more about her work in this faculty fellow profile.
December 3, 2025
Book Babies, an early-literacy home visiting program, was developed to strengthen literacy promoting practices of families’ and children’s early literacy skills. To determine the efficacy of this program and whether its impacts vary by families’ language status, a team of scholars from FPG and the HighScope Educational Research Foundation evaluated the program.
