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young boy with sandy brown hair and wearing a blue and white stripe top with gray pants carries an inflatable globe
May 5, 2025
Research is at the heart of all that we do at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG). Through rigorous study design, data collection, and analysis, we seek to improve children's lives, support families, and inform public policy. Visit our impact page for spotlights on some of our 60+ current projects to learn more about the reach and impact of our work.
Katy McCullough; woman with glasses and short blonde hair stands outside in front of shrub
April 28, 2025
Katy McCullough, MA, is a co-principal investigator and an associate director with the Early Childhood Technical Assistance (ECTA) Center within the Trohanis Technical Assistance Projects at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG). As part of our FPG profile series, we recently spoke with McCullough to learn more about her work at FPG. Here’s what she had to say.
Mia Alto; young woman with long dark brown hair stands outside in green field smiling at camera
April 23, 2025
Mia Alto, a UNC student majoring in psychology and management and society with a minor in Spanish, has been involved in many service opportunities in the community. For the past year, she's been working with FPG's autism team and is this year's recipient of the Barbara Davis Goldman Award.
Amelia Krysinksi; woman stands in brightly lit window-flanked corridor and smiles at camera
April 21, 2025
Amelia Krysinski is a project manager with the National Implementation Research Network at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute. She has experience in project management, coordinating participants and data collection for research studies, event planning, providing technical assistance, and more.
PBS North Carolina to Host Impact Early Childhood Education Summit June 7 in Winston-Salem, NC with stock image of three women sitting around a conference table
April 16, 2025
PBS NC will hold its fourth annual Impact Early Childhood Education Summit Saturday, June 7. This full-day conference aims to empower educators, childcare providers, parents and caregivers to lay a strong foundation for young learners. FPG is partnering with PBS for the event to host sessions focused on North Carolina pre-K.
Ping Chen; woman with shoulder-length black hair and glasses smiles at camera
April 14, 2025
Ping Chen is an advanced research scientist and social science research methodologist at FPG. With interdisciplinary experience in social science and epidemiology, she specializes in conducting research to understand social, environmental, behavioral, and biological linkages in developmental and long-term health trajectories.
wendy morgan; woman with shoulder-length curly brown hair and glasses
April 10, 2025
FPG's Wendy Morgan provides strategic and scalable infrastructure for the ITTI Care Project. Funded by the NCDCDEE and housed at Duke University, the project offers professional development for the infant/toddler child care workforce across the state of North Carolina to support the provision of trauma-informed child care.
Yolanda Perkins
April 7, 2025
Yolanda Perkins, EdS, is an implementation specialist at FPG. With more than 20 years of experience in K-12 and post-secondary education, her work focuses on expanding the use of evidence-based practices to reduce disparities in education, learning, and social outcomes. As part of our FPG profile series, we recently spoke with Perkins to learn more about her work at FPG. Here’s what she had to say.
AFIRM for toddlers; AFIRM and AFIRM for paraeducators logos
April 2, 2025
For the past 10 years, members of the autism team, including Ann Sam, Victoria Waters, and Sam Odom, at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute have provided Autism Focused Intervention Resources & Modules, offering evidence-based practices to support learners on the spectrum from birth to 22 years of age. To celebrate this decade milestone and April’s Autism Acceptance Month, the AFIRM team launched its new website this week.
lena harris at left and robin jenkins at right; headshots of people framed in carolina blue with colorful leaf elements
March 31, 2025
A commitment to vulnerable populations and the systems designed to assist them is shared by FPG Implementation Specialist Lena Harris and FPG Senior Implementation Specialist Robin Jenkins. This is reflected in their work providing implementation support to The Center for Trauma Recovery and Juvenile Justice at the University of Connecticut Health Center.
Clare Harrop
March 26, 2025
Developmental psychologist Clare Harrop, PhD, orients her research within this quote from the late renowned developmental psychologist Annette Karmiloff-Smith, “Development itself is the key to understanding developmental disorders.” This has led Harrop, a faculty fellow at the FPG and an associate professor in Carolina’s Department of Health Sciences, to study autism as a condition that evolves and changes with development and across key developmental periods.
Yolanda Perkins at left and Alicia Reynolds Reddi at right.
March 21, 2025
During the 2025 North Carolina Association for Research in Education (NCARE) conference, FPG Implementation Specialist Yolanda Perkins, EdS, and FPG Research Assistant Alicia Reynolds Reddi, MPH, presented a poster titled, Unpacking the Functions of Implementation Teams in Supporting Curriculum Implementation.
Victorial Waters; woman with long light brown hair and glasses smiles at camera
March 19, 2025
Victoria Waters, MEd, is an educational consultant at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG). As part of our FPG profile series, we recently spoke with Waters to learn more about her work at FPG. See what she had to say.
implementation science at work logo; episode 8 Looking into Implementation Support: Data, Quality Improvement and Program Success
March 18, 2025
The Impact Center at UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG) recently released episode eight of its podcast Implementation Science at Work. In this episode, titled "Looking into Implementation Support: Data, Quality Improvement and Program Success," they discuss an analysis of more than six years of qualitative survey data.
STEMIE logo
March 13, 2025
The STEM Innovation for Inclusion in Early Education Center (STEMIE)—a national technical assistance center working to ensure that all young children with and without disabilities are engaged in early STEM learning—has begun providing targeted technical assistance to cohorts of faculty and practitioners in the early childhood education field.
March 9, 2025
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.
group of femail friends e-learning while using wireless technology at university classroom.
March 6, 2025
Our Summer Graduate Internship Program in Implementation Practice is designed to create a challenging and meaningful professional experience for the trainees that includes mentoring, networking, professional development, and experiential learning opportunities.
Dorothy Cilenti; woman with medium blonde hair wearing a pink collared shirt and black sweater smiles at camera
March 4, 2025
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 FPG.
Allison De Marco; woman with short brown hair and wearing a white cowl smiles at camera
February 27, 2025
To help spread the word on how researchers can empower local communities through collaboration, Allison De Marco and several Educare colleagues presented, “Seeing Communities as Experts on their Own Data: A Research-Practice Partnership” during Carolina Engagement Week, which brought together Carolina faculty, staff and students with community partners to highlight partnerships between UNC-Chapel Hill and North Carolina communities.

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