Prof. Dr. Dean L. Fixsen

Dean L. Fixsen, Ph.D. began his career in human services in 1963 as a Psychiatric Aide in a large state hospital for children with profound developmental delays. Dean received his doctorate in Experimental Psychology from the University of Kansas in 1970. Starting in the 1960s, Dean was Co-Director of the research group that produced the Teaching-Family Model, an early version of an evidence-based program and one of the few that has national certification standards for practitioners and for organizations using the Model. Dean is co-author of the highly regarded monograph, Implementation research: A synthesis of the literature. He has served on numerous editorial boards and has advised federal, state, and local governments. Dean is a Senior Scientist at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Co-Director of the National Implementation Research Network; Co-Director of the State Implementation and Scaling up of Evidence-based Practices Center; Co-Founder of the Global Implementation Initiative; and a member of the founding Board of Editors of the journal Implementation Science. Dean has spent his career developing and implementing evidence-based programs, initiating and managing change processes in provider organizations and service delivery systems, and working with others to improve the lives of children, families, and adults.