The faculty steering committee has constituted itself with the charge of leading the UC system in establishing a California-wide Center for Research in Special Education, Disabilities, and Developmental Risk (SPEDDR) as a Multi-Campus Research Unit that will unify and solidify UC resources. Primary aims of the Center are to enhance the University of California’s ability to attract from a national pool of talented students, win large extramural grants, improve national visibility of UC efforts, and enhance the doctoral preparation of the next generation of research, teacher education, and other related public service doctorates. Already, UCSB, UCR, UCSD, and UCLA and the UC Office of the President have each made ongoing financial commitments to the Center, and UCD and UCB have indicated their support.

Alumni UC SPEDDR Doctoral Student Council representative, Dr. Jill Locke is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Center for Autism Research. Dr. Locke completed her doctorate degree in Educational Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Locke's research focuses on examining: 1) the social development of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD); 2) the efficacy of targeted social skills interventions on the peer relationships and social networks of children with ASD in inclusive public school settings; and 3) the ways in which treatment gains in intervention programs are generalized and sustained over time as well as the delivery to and sustainability of evidence-based practices in community settings. Dr. Locke received a 2011 Autism Science Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship Award to examine the implementation of evidence-based social skills interventions in public school settings.