MacART is thrilled to share that the 2025 Data-to-Policy Fellowship cohort has been announced! On Tuesday, April 29, 2025, Autism Alliance of Canada announced the new cohort of Data-to-Policy fellows. The Data-to-Policy Fellowship is a pan-Canadian initiative led by Autism Alliance of Canada through the National Centre of Autism Collaboration and supported by partners across sectors, working together to bridge research and policy for meaningful impact. The Data-to-Policy Fellowship connects emerging leaders with organizations driving change, ensuring that research translates into real-world impact.
Among these promising recipients, we want to give a special congratulations to MacART trainee member Maya Albin, along with Rachelle Humes and Jennifer Crookshank, who will both work with our Pediatric Autism Research Cohort (PARC) Study data in their projects! The PARC Study is MacART’s cornerstone study; it is a multisite longitudinal cohort study that explores developmental trajectories in Autistic children as they are followed over time.
Maya, based at McMaster University, will be working on a project with community partner Dori Zener & Associates titled, “Co-designing communication partner training with autistic youth, communication partners, and speech-language pathologists”, which will be funded by McMaster University and will focus on addressing communication barriers through neurodiversity-affirming research and inclusive co-design.
Rachelle, based at Carleton University, will be working on a project with PARC titled, “Pediatric Autism Research Cohort (PARC) Interviews Project: Centering Caregiver Voices to Improve Research Design and Care Delivery” alongside community partner CHEO, which will work toward ways to ensure family experiences directly shape future policies and engagement practices.
Jennifer, based also at Carleton University, will be working with community partner Autism Ontario on a project titled, “Predicting School Avoidance in Young Autistic Children”, which will also use PARC data to explore what factors might lead to young Autistic kids avoiding going to school, and how common this is.
The MacART team is excited to see the insights and innovation that the selected cohort will contribute to meaningful advancements in autism policy and practice!
To read more about the 2025 Data-to-Policy Fellowship cohort, please visit: https://autismalliance.ca/data-to-policy-fellows-2025/
