Eileen McGrath, PhD

University of Arizona LEND

Eileen R. McGrath, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the College of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics and in the College of Public Health at the University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson, Arizona. Dr. McGrath is the Co-Director/Co-Principal Investigator and Training Director of the University of Arizona Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities Training Program (ArizonaLEND); and, Director of the Neonatal Developmental Follow-Up Clinic at UA. In addition to these activities, Dr. McGrath teaches the online course, Applied Leadership and Interdisciplinary Management of Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

Dr. McGrath has extensive experience teaching university students in early childhood special education, training early intervention practitioners, and teaching young children with low incidence neurodevelopmental and related disabilities including children with autism spectrum disorders. She has conducted research on the effects of systems change on the field (early childhood special education), service recipients, and service providers, as well as the effects of implementing family-centered services on families, early intervention service coordinators, practitioners and the service delivery systems. Her current research focuses on the predictors of developmental outcomes of high-risk, NAS, and developmentally delayed infants; the impact of prematurity on a diagnosis of a

neurodevelopmental disorder; and self-regulation in children born with extremely low birth weight. For 20 years, Dr. McGrath owned and operated a Tucson-based agency that provided service coordination and early childhood special education services to families with infants and toddlers who were eligible for Part C services under IDEA. Throughout this time, she held contracts with the Arizona Early Intervention Program (AzEIP), the Department of Economic Security, Division of Developmental Disabilities (DES, DDD) and the Arizona Department of Education (ADE). She trained hundreds of early intervention practitioners, sub-contracted with many allied health professionals. She was the principal investigator for 15 grants and contracts with a total funding of more than $7.5 million dollars.