Utilizing her background as a speech-language pathologist, Jessica Steinbrenner, PhD, centers her research on children with autism, with a focus on school-based interventions and individuals on the spectrum with significant communication needs. Steinbrenner, an associate professor in the Department of Health Sciences of the UNC School of Medicine, is also a faculty fellow at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG), a role she began in 2021.

Before joining the Department of Health Sciences, Steinbrenner worked as an advanced research scientist at FPG. Becoming an FPG faculty fellow allows her to stay involved with the Institute, the home of some of her research projects. This includes Project EXPRESS: EXamining interventions to PRomote Executive function and Social Skills, on which she is the principal investigator. This five-year study, which began in 2021, is evaluating two treatment programs—one to address social skills and the other to focus on executive function skills—that work with adolescents on the autism spectrum. FPG Senior Research Scientists Samuel Odom, PhD, and Ann Sam, PhD, serve as co-principal investigators. She also frequently collaborates with FPG Director Brian Boyd, PhD, and FPG Research Scientist Sallie Nowell, PhD, who, like Steinbrenner, is a licensed speech-language pathologist.

The unifying factor in Steinbrenner’s research is that it is almost always based in school or community settings, with a focus on supporting students with autism—ranging from preschool-age children to young adults— their families, and the professionals who work with them. As a speech-language pathologist, Steinbrenner is interested in communication, social communication, and peer engagement. Her work revolves around moving effective practices into real-world settings, which are generally more complex and less resourced than the university or clinic settings in which interventions are often developed.

In recent studies, she and her colleagues have integrated implementation and procedural evaluation studies in their research. This focuses on obtaining information from multiple sources, including the end users, about how interventions are working in the schools, with the goal of better understanding facilitators and barriers to implementation in real-world settings.

“All the work I do is done in teams of people,” says Steinbrenner. “Being connected to people at FPG who rely heavily on team science and collaboration creates a synergistic atmosphere to keep honing ideas I have and developing collaborations. On the flip side, I try to help hone the ideas of others and think through what the next steps are for advancing the science and the field to better the lives of children and their families.”

Steinbrenner’s desire to stay connected to FPG stems from the value she sees in FPG’s work and the alignment between the Institute’s research and her own. “All the work I do is done in teams of people,” she says. “Being connected to people at FPG who rely heavily on team science and collaboration creates a synergistic atmosphere to keep honing ideas I have and developing collaborations. On the flip side, I try to help hone the ideas of others and think through what the next steps are for advancing the science and the field to better the lives of children and their families.”

She is also committed to helping advance the work of the Institute through her service on the FPG Next community connections committee, which is charged with maintaining and expanding connections within FPG and throughout the UNC campus and beyond. This can take shape as joint projects, disseminating FPG’s work more widely, or taking advantage of the differing expertise available in different parts of campus.

Being a faculty fellow has been rewarding to Steinbrenner. Her attendance at Institute research forums and special events has enriched her scholarship.  She values the opportunity to work with students at FPG and UNC, including work-study students,  undergraduate students participating in the Marvin H. McKinney Scholars Program in Research, Practice, and Policy, and PhD students placed on research teams. She is happy to help expose students to different aspects of research and encourage them to join the field, noting students going into educational or clinical fields too often do not consider research as an option.

Steinbrenner appreciates being able to combine teaching and research. She notes how energized she is by working with students, both as a mentor and a professor. She teaches a research methods class to graduate students and an autism seminar course for master's students in speech-language pathology and from the UNC School of Education. She enjoys the combination of both pre-service and in-service education, in which she offers professional development, working with educators and practitioners in the field and sharing her work at conferences.

“At the same time, I love doing research because I have a curious, questioning mind,” she says. “I enjoy thinking about ideas in different ways and exploring how we can help autistic children and their families and the educators who serve them.”