Geraldine Dawson Ph.D.

Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D., is the William Cleland Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University and the founding director of the Duke Center for Autism.

Dawson is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She served as president of the International Society for Autism Research and was the founding director of the University of Washington Autism Center.

From 2008-2013, Dawson was the first chief science officer for Autism Speaks. She served on the federal Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee for two terms. Dawson was awarded the American Psychological Association Distinguished Career Award; Association for Psychological Science Lifetime Achievement Award; and Clarivate Top 1% Cited Researcher Across All Scientific Fields. She is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, American Psychological Association, and International Society for Autism Research.

Dawson has published over 350 scientific articles and authored or co-authored 13 books.

With Sally Rogers, Dawson co-created the Early Start Denver Model, an empirically validated early autism intervention, which has been translated into 17 languages and is used worldwide.