News Archive
December 8, 2022
In August 2022, Advanced Research Scientist Ximena Franco-Jenkins, PhD, helped launch an evaluation study of the MECK Pre-K Program, a longitudinal project expected to span 10 years. Franco-Jenkins, early childhood portfolio lead at the National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) at FPG, serves as co-principal investigator, alongside HighScope Educational Research Foundation, to conduct this independent and unbiased evaluation.
December 5, 2022
Thanks to her background as a special education teacher, Implementation Specialist Sophia Farmer brings real-world experience to her role as K-12 education project portfolio lead at UNC’s Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute. Learn more about her work as an implementation specialist at FPG.
December 2, 2022
The UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG) is excited to share its 2022 Impact Report, in which you’ll learn about how we are responding to the needs of practitioners, parents, and families—around the globe—through a variety of digital platforms and products. And you’ll find many examples of how we are working along the research-practice-policy continuum to promote positive developmental and educational outcomes for children of all backgrounds and all abilities.
November 22, 2022
Heather Aiken, PhD, NBCT, serves as the intervention director for Targeted Reading Instruction (TRI; formerly called Targeted Reading Intervention) at FPG. Before beginning this role, she worked for three years as a TRI literacy coach while earning her doctorate in teacher education and curriculum at UNC-Chapel Hill.
November 17, 2022
FPG Director, Aysenil Belger, joined the westbound contingent of the 2022 Tar Heel Bus Tour with the goal of gaining a better understanding about opportunities and potential collaborations for FPG throughout the state and hearing directly from community members. Launched in 1997, the Tar Heel Bus Tour is designed to demonstrate UNC-Chapel Hill’s impact in the state of North Carolina and its commitment to public service and more.
November 15, 2022
It’s been two years since Faculty Fellow Iheoma Iruka, PhD, launched FPG’s Equity Research Action Coalition. Since then, the group has taken big steps in its work to promote and support the healthy development of Black children across the African diaspora and other children of color.
November 9, 2022
FPG's growing publications library includes more than 2,500 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.
November 6, 2022
The University of North Carolina System has announced the 2023 Faculty Fellows, who will spend one year researching teaching methods and best practices. The fellows are Jennifer Dalton from Appalachian State University, Jeff Lawson from Western Carolina University, and Nigel Pierce from North Carolina Central University. Pierce is also a Faculty Fellow at FPG.
November 1, 2022
Growing up in the Eastern Plains (Llanos Orientales) of Colombia and travelling to Bogotá for her schooling, Linda Soto developed a love of education and children. Now, as a full-time social research assistant at FPG, she enjoys being behind the scenes, working to ensure that the Latinx community is included in the Institute’s research and programs.
October 24, 2022
Robert Carr’s path to his current role as a research scientist at FPG began in a Head Start preschool classroom in San Diego, CA, where he saw the benefits the program provided to children and families. Yet, every year, he watched as children graduated from the program and he wondered whether those benefits would continue to last. That question has been a guiding force for Carr.
October 19, 2022
FPG is pleased to recognize both National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) Implementation Associate Stephen McKinney, MA, and Human Resources Specialist Natalie Nelson, PHR, SHRM-CP, for their outstanding service to the Institute as this year's James J. Gallagher Award winners.
October 13, 2022
In support of the Institute’s strategic plan, researchers and members of the Research and Evaluation division at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute have been working to embed racial equity in everything they do.
October 9, 2022
Correy Watkins, MA, joined the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG) as an implementation specialist in 2021, bringing with him years of experience in public education.
October 3, 2022
Thanks to a new five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), a group of researchers at FPG is expanding its work to support implementation of instructional and leadership practices that lead to improved outcomes for students with disabilities.
September 25, 2022
For more than 20 years, FPG has enjoyed a research-practice partnership with the Department of Child Development and Early Education (DCDEE) of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Last year, this collaboration was strengthened even further with the establishment of a formal research-policy-practice collaboration.
September 21, 2022
FPG will continue to provide high quality technical assistance to improve services and results for children with disabilities and their families through a new award for the Early Childhood Technical Assistance (ECTA) Center. The award, funded by the Office of Special Education Programs, U. S. Department of Education, builds on ECTA's current work of supporting programs that serve young children with disabilities, birth to 5 years, and their families.
September 19, 2022
Three implementation specialists at FPG, along with three colleagues from other institutions, earned a top award during the 2022 Society for Implementation Research Collaboration Conference for their symposium titled "Mechanisms of Change Within External Implementation Support: A Conceptual Model and Applied Case Examples."
September 14, 2022
The UNC School of Education honored four faculty members at a Celebration of Scholarly Excellence, with one named to an endowed professorship and three named as faculty scholars, during a Sept. 8 event at the George Watts Hill Alumni Center on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. Among the honorees were FPG Faculty Fellow, Kara Hume, PhD, and FPG Executive Leadership Board Chair Elect, Brian Boyd, PhD.
September 6, 2022
In July, with funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES), a team of FPG researchers launched a measurement study focused on the social-emotional learning of young children. The project is designed to establish the psychometric qualities of the Teacher Impression Scale (TIS), a practitioner-administered assessment of preschool children's peer-related social competence.
August 31, 2022
Recognizing the underrepresentation in research studies of young children and families living in rural poverty, a group of scholars created the Family Life Project. This multidisciplinary longitudinal study, which used an epidemiologic sampling frame to recruit a representative sample of every baby born in one of six poor rural counties in NC and PA, joined ECHO in 2016 to work toward understanding the effects of a broad range of early environmental influences on child health and development.
