Title: The William C. Friday Distinguished Professor Emerita
Company: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Location: Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
Lynne Vernon-Feagans, the William C. Friday Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been recognized by Marquis Who’s Who Top Educators for dedication, achievements, and leadership in developmental psychology and Education
With 49 years of experience to her credit since completing her Ph.D., Dr. Vernon-Feagans has excelled as the William C. Friday Distinguished Professor Emerita at the School of Education of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 2001. She contributed throughout her distinguished career in a multitude of roles and positions, including at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute as a research associate and investigator starting in 1976 and later as an associate professor of special education from 1982 to 1985. She garnered a stellar reputation at The Pennsylvania State University as a professor of human development from 1985 to 2001 while also being the associate dean for research within the College of Health and Human Development from 1995 to 2001, and interim dean of the College of Health and Human Development from 2000 to 2001.
Dr. Vernon-Feagans returned to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for the remainder of her career, serving as program coordinator of the graduate program in applied developmental sciences and special education within the School of Education from 2001 to 2013, the William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of child development and family studies from 2001 to 2017, senior research scientist at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute from 2017 to 2020, and research professor from 2017 to 2020 in the School of Education. She held the role of program coordinator and founder of Human Development and Family Studies undergraduate major in the School of Education from 2018 to 2020. She was active as a participant, co-leader and then leader of the Faculty Retirement Seminar at the University of North Carolina between 2021 and 2023.
Before embarking on her professional path, Dr. Vernon-Feagans pursued an education at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics with honors. She concluded her education at the University of Michigan, graduating with a PhD in developmental psychology and linguistics in 1975.
Beyond her responsibilities as a faculty member, Dr. Vernon-Feagans has participated in numerous contributions to the fields of education and psychology related to her professional expertise. Over her career, she has garnered over 60 million dollars in federal grants to conduct important research on child language, literacy, and poverty. She authored or co-authored over 150 peer-reviewed journal articles and over 50 book chapters, and published many books, including one that was republished recently by UNC Press in 2022. She has won numerous awards for her research at and beyond her university affiliations, and was awarded the prestigious Rockefeller fellowship to Bellagio Italy that laid the foundation for a groundbreaking Child Development Monograph in 2013. She has been on many journal editorial boards. She has served on the board of directors of a number of foundations and non-profits. and was a panel member on “Language and the Achievement Gap” for the National Academy of Science in 2008.
Dr. Vernon-Feagans is known for her leadership of the Family Life Project, the largest birth cohort study of low-wealth rural children in the US, funded by NICHD. This unique sample includes a representative sample of every baby born to a mother who lived in two low-wealth areas east of the Mississippi over a one-year period (1300 children), oversampling for African American and low-wealth families. These children have been followed from birth into later adolescence and the early data are archived for general research use at the University of Michigan. She is known for her research on early maternal language and children’s later language and literacy. She also developed one of the only successful early reading programs used by classroom teachers in the US by using Zoom technology to coach classroom teachers using remote literacy coaches. Through many successful randomized controlled trials, the Targeted Reading Instruction has been endorsed by What Works Clearinghouse and many foundations and reading institutes around the country.
In addition to her primary position as a chaired professor, Dr. Vernon-Feagans remains affiliated with various organizations in relation to her areas of expertise. She was a member of the Society for Research in Child Development, the American Educational Research Association, the International Academy for Research in Learning Disabilities, the American Psychological Association, the Association for Children with Learning Disabilities, the Council for Learning Disabilities, the International Society on Infant Studies, the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, the Society of Pediatric Psychology, and the Council for Exceptional Children.
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