Vice President for Research

All faculty, research staff, and researchers are invited to a 1-hour virtual brainstorming session and town hall to consider the formation of a University of Utah Autism Research Working Group. The creation of an autism research working group would help researchers across campus explore resources, opportunities, and funding related to shared interests and goals in the autism research space. A brief description of autism research is provided below – this description is not meant to be entirely comprehensive but to give an idea of where the conversation will start. A large portion of this initial event will focus on community discussion and feedback. The town hall will take place on Friday, September 20^th, 2024, from 1:00pm-2:00pm (MST). This is a virtual meeting, hosted over Zoom. Meeting Access Link: https://utah.zoom.us/j/93846984941. We are excited to be collaborating with Michele Villalobos and Anne Kirby (cc’d) who will be helping to guide the conversation at this town hall. Michelle, Anne, and the VPR Office are excited to meet and collaborate with all faculty, students, post-docs, and staff from across campus who are interested in engaging Autism research at an institutional level. We are collecting RSVPs for this event using Luma. Please RSVP for this event HERE. After completing the RSVP form, Luma will automatically send a calendar invite with the below information and Zoom link. We encourage attendance and participation from all areas of campus. All University of Utah research faculty, staff, students, post-docs, community/partners welcome to attend this event. Faculty already engaged in autism research are strongly encouraged to attend and share ideas/resources. Please share with all interested parties. Questions can be directed HERE. We look forward to seeing you at the town hall. Thank you! --- Autism is a multifaceted condition, diagnosed based on observable differences in social functioning and behavior starting early in development but also accompanied by genetic, neurological, and/or biological variations. Autistic people often have unique strengths, while also facing challenges across the lifespan related to social, emotional, learning, and health needs that can affect their abilities to thrive at different points in their lives. Autism research spans medical, educational, social science, and many other fields all along the translational research spectrum from bench to clinical approaches. A working group focused on autism research could help draw links between different types of research currently happening on campus, and open doors for future collaborations to maximize the potential for research to impact meaningful change for autistic people.