Craig H. Kennedy

Senior Associate Dean; Professor of Special Education and Pediatrics

Ph.D., University of California at Santa Barbara, 1992

Craig H. Kennedy is the Senior Associate Dean at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University and a Professor of Special Education and Pediatrics. He is also an investigator in the Center on Integrative and Cognitive Neuroscience, Vanderbilt Brain Institute, and Vanderbilt Kennedy Center. Prior to joining the Dean’s Office at Peabody College, Dr. Kennedy was Chair of the Special Education Department.

Dr. Kennedy’s research focuses on two distinct areas. One area focuses on aggression and self-injury involving a translational approach spanning basic to applied research. His pre-clinical research uses model systems to understand the neurobiology of aggression and the effects of sleep deprivation on behavior. His clinical work focuses on the assessment and intervention of aggression and self-injury in people with autism, including the effects of health care conditions on behavior problems. Dr. Kennedy’s second line of research focuses on social relationship development and inclusive education for students with autism and related neurodevelopmental disabilities. This research has led to the development of peer support strategies to facilitate the social integration of students with disabilities into general education settings.

Dr. Kennedy has been a member of the Vanderbilt University community since 1997. Prior to that, he was an Associate Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Clinical Pharmacology at the Medical College of Pennsylvania. He began his academic career as an Assistant Professor of Special Education at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Dr. Kennedy has published approximately 150 scholarly articles, book chapters, and books, and presented over 300 papers at national and international conferences. He has been principal or co-investigator on over $16 million in extramural funding. During this time he has served as a member of nine editorial boards and an associate editor for three journals, including the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. He has also served as a member of the Board of Trust for the Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. He currently chairs the social/behavioral review committee for the Institute of Education Sciences and serves as an ad hoc reviewer for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and National Institute of Mental Health.

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