Newsroom
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK -- Don Bailey, distinguished fellow at RTI International, has been elected chair of the RTI Fellow Program.
As the chair, he will oversee the fellows in their efforts to provide scientific leadership and advice on the state of science for RTI. He also will serve on RTI’s Executive Leadership Team.
Bailey was appointed a distinguished fellow in early childhood development at RTI in November 2005. He is internationally known as an expert on young children with disabilities.
For 27 years, he was on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a W.R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor and, for 14 years, director of the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute.
Bailey's research addresses early identification and early intervention for children with disabilities, as well as family adaptation to disability. For more than 20 years, his work has focused on children with fragile X syndrome, the leading inherited cause of intellectual impairment, and their families.
Currently he is leading RTI’s role in a newly established partnership with The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to implement a Clinical and Translational Science Award from the National Institutes of Health.
He has an extensive record of publications, with more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, chapters and books on a wide variety of topics related to early education, early intervention, disability and family support.
In 2006, Bailey received the Career Research Scientist Award from the Academy on Mental Retardation. From 2006 to 2009, he served as president of the board of directors of the National Fragile X Foundation. He currently is serving a four-year term on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Secretary's Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders in Newborns and Children.
Bailey holds a doctorate degree in early childhood special education from the University of Washington, a master's degree in early childhood special education from UNC, and a bachelor of arts degree in psychology from Davidson College.
The RTI Fellow Program was established in August 2001 to provide professional opportunities for exceptionally talented staff members committed to science, technology, research and policy analysis in support of RTI's mission to improve the human condition. The program has three levels: Fellow, Senior Fellow and Distinguished Fellow.
