Psych Alum Leads $15M Grant to Study Autism

Psychology alumnus Kevin Pelphrey (’96) is principal investigator on a newly-awarded $15 million grant from the National Institutes of Health that will investigate why autism spectrum disorders are almost five times more common among boys than among girls.

Pelphrey is now the Harris Associate Professor in Yale’s Child Study Center, associate professor of psychology, and director of the Child Neuroscience Laboratory. He will collaborate with a team of researchers from Yale, UCLA, Harvard, and the University of Washington, as part of a $100 million National Institutes of Health grant to nine institutions investigating sex differences in autism spectrum disorders, as well as studying ASD and limited speech.

Pelphrey’s former undergraduate honors thesis adviser Lynne Baker-Ward always had high hopes for him. “Kevin Pelphrey’s ongoing work embodies the same passion for improving children’s lives through psychological research that he demonstrated as an undergraduate,” says Professor of Psychology Baker-Ward, who directs the Psychology Department’s graduate programs. “I always expected that this commitment, in conjunction with his talent, intellectual generativity, and interpersonal skills, would take him far. It was a rare privilege to participate in Kevin’s early training, and it’s a continuing joy to watch his extraordinary career develop.” Baker-Ward served on Pelphrey’s dissertation committee at UNC-CH.

Read the full release about Pelphrey’s grant on the NIH News site, and more about his research on News-Medical.Net.