Cheryl Dissanayake

Professor Dissanayake is the Founding Director and inaugural Chair of Australia’s first research centre dedicated to autism, the Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre at La Trobe University, established in 2008. She has been an autism researcher since 1984 when she began her PhD at Monash University. She undertook her postdoctoral training at UCLA, and established and led an active autism research program upon joining La Trobe University in 1996. Her research focus has been on understanding developmental mechanisms in autism particularly in infancy and early childhood, covering the areas of early identification, early intervention, and social-emotional and social-cognitive development. More recently, she has published in the area of adulthood, particularly regarding employment and mental health.<br/><br/>Prof. Dissanayake was instrumental in bringing together Victorian and Australian autism researchers, having co-founded the Autism Victoria Research Group (in 2003), the Australasian Autism Research Alliance (in 2005), the Australasian Autism Research Collaboration (in 2009) and the Australasian Society for Autism Research (2011), a member based society of which she is vice-President. She is a Project Leader in the Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism, and sits on the editorial boards of Autism Research and the Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders.<br/><br/>Professor Dissanayake was among the first ten scholars to be inaugurated as a Fellow of the International Society of Autism Research in 2018, and was elected vice-President of INSAR in 2019. She also serves on the INSAR Senior Global Leaders Committee and is Chair of the Fellows Committee.