March 8th is International Women’s Day, and the entire month of March is Women's History Month here in the U.S. In honor of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we’re celebrating all of the inspiring and dedicated women of FPG, who are represented by their work, their publications, through news stories, and more across our website.

Dorothy Cilenti considers herself a “pracademic.” She is committed to taking what she learns in the academic environment and using that knowledge to impact outcomes in the practice community. Cilenti, a clinical professor in the Department of Maternal and Child Health at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, is a faculty fellow at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG).

The UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health has announced the recipients of the second Gillings Research Excellence Awards. Seven faculty members, including FPG Faculty Fellow Sean Sylvia, will receive $500 each to support their research, scholarship, and professional development.

Kara Hume, a faculty fellow at UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, was named the recipient of the 2025 Council for Exceptional Children’s Division on Autism and Developmental Disabilities (DADD) Research Award — a recognition that honors outstanding contributions to research supporting individuals with autism, intellectual disability, and other developmental disabilities.

FPG's Chih-Ing Lim and Megan Vinh have been named as the recipients of the 2025 Thelma Harms Early Childhood Education Award. The award—awarded to FPG employees or international practitioners working with an FPG employee on an early childhood project—is designed to further the understanding and improvement of early childhood program quality internationally.

Soon after Laura Klinger joined the faculty at UNC in 2011 as an associate professor in the department of psychiatry and as executive director of the UNC TEACCH Autism Program, she became a faculty fellow at UNC’s Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute. Her desire to connect with FPG stemmed from the Institute’s preeminent role in research on early child development, a natural fit for her research interests in autism.

Lisa Kristianson is a project coordinator at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG). As part of our FPG profile series, we recently spoke with Kristianson to learn more about her work at FPG. Find out what she had to say.

FPG's growing publications library includes almost 2,700 journal articles, policy briefs, assessment tools, learning modules, and multimedia to support multiple audiences at home and abroad. We've gathered a list of some of our most recent publications—and encourage you to click through to learn more about the amazing work being done here at FPG.

The UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute is committed to generating knowledge, informing policies, and supporting practices to promote positive developmental and educational outcomes for children of all backgrounds and all abilities from the earliest years. Within the Institute, is a diverse team of scholars who collaborate on a variety of projects and research aimed at improving outcomes for students on the spectrum and providing tools and support to caregivers and teachers who support and serve them.