About / Oct 09 / Ethridge awarded SIFF Fellowship

October 13, 2009
For immediate release

Ph.D. candidate Brandy Ethridge of UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School awarded prestigious Siff Fellowship

Brandy L. Ethridge, a doctoral student at the Gevirtz School at UC Santa Barbara, has been awarded a Philip & Aida Siff Educational Foundation Fellowship for the 2009-2010 academic year. In the letter announcing the $7500 award, the Foundation wrote, “You are to be commended for your academic achievements to date and your obvious dedication to the achievement of a higher education. We trust that the Fellowship awarded will allow you to pursue your graduate education with additional enthusiasm.”

The Siff Foundation, based in Santa Barbara, supports doctoral students researching the education of individuals with developmental disabilities.

During the 2009-2010 academic year Ethridge research will be primarily focused on identifying evidence-based practices for families with children with developmental disabilities as well as identifying the facilitators and barriers to practitioners implementing evidence-based practices and thus getting the research to practice. Both areas of research are designed to facilitate the development, accessibility, and implementation of evidence-based practices to all stakeholders in the policy, research, and practice focused on improving the quality of life of children, adolescents, and adults with disabilities and their families.

Brandy L. Ethridge, currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Special Education, Disabilities and Risk Studies emphasis in the Gevirtz School’s Department of Education, is a native Ohioan that previously worked as an Ohio Department of Health (ODH) Bureau of Early Intervention Services researcher and was the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Part C Data Manager for Ohio, co-facilitating state compliance with federal law and regulations-associated data collection and reporting guidelines. Ethridge’s current research interest is in examining evidence-based practices and their implementation with individuals with developmental disabilities and their families. Her experiences working for the state and being the adult child and sibling of individuals with disabilities have been invaluable assets to her research.

“I am honored and humbled to have been awarded the Philip & Aida Siff Educational Foundation Fellowship,” Ethridge says. “This award allows me to continue examining evidence-based practices and their implementation, thereby facilitating improvements in the quality of life of children with developmental disabilities and their families across the lifespan.”

[Brandy Ethridge is available for interviews; contact George Yatchisin at 805 893 5789]
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Ph.D. candidate Brandy Ethridge of UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School awarded prestigious Siff Fellowship