2026

August 7, 2026, Dr. Jason Griffin, Assistant Professor of Psychology, received the Sara S. Sparrow Early Career Research Award from the American Psychological Association, Division 33. This award is given to an individual who has made substantial contributions to the understanding of IDD/ASD as reflected in their published research. 

June 12, 2026, Dr. Johanna Bick, Associate Professor of Psychology, has received a $2.77M, 5-year R01 grant award from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development titled “A Randomized Control Trial of a Scalable Parenting Program to support Candidate Brain Pathways, Autonomic Regulation, and Socio-Emotional Development in Preterm Infants.” Co-investigators are Assistant Professor of Psychology Dr. Jeremy Borjon and Research Associate Professor of Psychology Paulina Kulesz. 

May 28, 2026, Dr. Hanako Yoshida, Professor of Psychology, has received a $1.64M, 5-year R01 grant award from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development titled “Multimodal Dynamics of Infant Attention: Eye, Brain, and Heart During Object Play.” Co-investigators are Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished University Chair Dr. David Francis, Associate Professor of Psychology Dr. Johanna Bick, and Assistant Professor of Psychology Dr. Jeremy Borjon. 

March 6, 2026, Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor of Psychology Dr. Elena Grigorenko and Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Research Professor Dr. Jack Fletcher have received an $11.8M NIH P50 grant and is titled, “Epidemiology, etiology, and pathways to DLD: The role of late talking in linguistically and culturally representative children.” This grant will be a part of the Texas Center for Learning Disorders (TCLD). There are numerous UH faculty affiliated with this grant. DCBN faculty include Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished University Chair Dr. David Francis and Assistant Professor of Psychology Dr. Jeremy Borjon. 

February 27, 2026, Ayesha Sultana, Graduate Student supervised by Dr. Jason Griffin, was awarded a Diversity Travel Award from the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) to present her research in Prague. 

February 27, 2026, Callie Istre, Graduate Student supervised by Dr. Jason Griffin, was awarded a Student Travel Award from the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) to present her research in Prague. 

February 12, 2025, Elizabeth Perkovich, Graduate Student supervised by Dr. Hanako Yoshida, was awarded a 2-year F31 NIH fellowship titled, “Developmental Mechanisms of Joint Attention During Parent-Infant Play Among Infants at High Familial Likelihood of Later Autism Diagnosis.” 

2025

June 1, 2025, Lillyan Arriaga, an undergraduate student with Dr. Jeremy Borjon, won the Laurie T. Callicutt scholarship award from the Department of Psychology. 

May 12, 2025, Manash Sahoo, a graduate student with Dr. Jeremy Borjon, won a competitive travel award to attend the EnvisionBox Summer School: Unboxing Multimodality: Analysis Pipelines for Behavioral Dynamics in Amsterdam, NL. 

September 15, 2025, Dr. Jason Griffin, Assistant Professor, was awarded a 5-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The funded project, titled “Investigating Neural Predictors of Real-World Social Attention in Autism During Naturalistic Social Interactions,” will use innovative ambulatory eye-tracking and electroencephalography (EEG) methods to study how autistic and neurotypical children attend to faces during live, face-to-face interactions. 

June 5, 2025, Dr. Jason Griffin received the NOMIS and Science Young Explorer Award for his innovative approaches to autism research. The NOMIS foundation hosted a ceremony for this award at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, where Dr. Griffin gave a talk about his bold and innovative approaches in autism research. See press release here. 

April 25, 2025, Dr. Elena Grigorenko, the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor of Psychology, received the 2025 Esther Farfel Award, the University of Houston’s highest faculty honor. This award is given to faculty who are transforming their respective disciplines through groundbreaking research, teaching excellence, and service to the community. 

April 25, 2025, Dr. J. Leigh Leasure received a University of Houston Teaching Excellence Award. Dr. Leasure was nominated for this award by students, and received it after 4 classroom visits by faculty judges. The award reflects her passion for classroom teaching.