Joseph Piven, MD, the Thomas E. Castelloe Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics and director of the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities was given the award for his fundamental contributions to research on autism spectrum disorders.
On May 1, 2025, Joseph Piven, MD, the Thomas E. Castelloe Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the UNC School of Medicine and director of the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities (CIDD), was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Society for Autism Research.
The award, the most prestigious honor in the field of autism research, recognizes the career of a researcher who has made significant advances to understanding autism that have made a lasting impact on the field. The Lifetime Achievement Award recipient is decided by the society’s board of directors, who are prominent international autism researchers themselves.
“This distinguished honor celebrates Dr. Piven’s visionary leadership and enduring contributions to autism research,” stated INSAR when presenting the award. “His work has shaped the field and inspired generations of scientists and clinicians.”
The International Society for Autism Research is the largest and most prominent autism research society in the world. Piven received the award at the society’s international meeting, held this year in Seattle, and he gave an acceptance speech overviewing his career’s work to an audience of over 2,400 international autism researchers.
“I am immensely honored to receive this award from my peers in the international autism research community, many of whom I have known for over 20 years,” said Piven.
Piven is a child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist at UNC School of Medicine, and he is founding director of the UNC CIDD, where he oversees its comprehensive program of research, clinical care, and specialized training in developmental disabilities.
The CIDD, funded primarily through federal grants, provides multidisciplinary clinical care for newborns to adults, conducts basic to applied research and clinical trials, and has trained hundreds of clinicians and researchers.
The mission of CIDD’s bench-to-bedside comprehensive approach is to help improve the lives of individuals with developmental disabilities and their families throughout North Carolina and the United States. CIDD has also received continuous funding since the 1960s to serve as a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities.
“UNC is a shining star in developmental disabilities research, training, and clinical care thanks to the visionary leadership of Dr. Piven,” said Gabriel Dichter, PhD, associate director for research at the CIDD.
Piven’s research program has been robust, emphasizing interdisciplinary team science in MRI brain imaging, family studies, and molecular genetics, aimed at discovering the pathogenesis of autism and related neurogenetic syndromes. He is the author of over 250 peer-reviewed publications on neurodevelopmental disabilities.
He has served as principal investigator on several national research centers on autism, including an Autism Center of Excellence of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. UNC is the only Autism Center of Excellence in the U.S. that has been funded by NIH for the four consecutive grant cycles of this funding mechanism, generating a total of 20 years of research.
The UNC Autism Center of Excellence is the lead university for the Infant Brain Imaging Study (IBIS) Network, which has discovered early brain markers for autism as early as 6 months of age, before the onset of diagnostic behavioral symptoms of autism. These biomarkers are detectable by a non-invasive MRI scan at 6 months and could predict which babies went on to develop autism two years later.
Piven has also played a momentous role in inspiring the next generation of researchers. Mark Shen, PhD, an assistant professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at UNC School of Medicine and co-director of the CIDD Clinical Trials Program, was a former postdoctoral fellow mentored by Piven.
“Joe’s mentorship and leadership has been pivotal in helping the career development of early career researchers; in fact, dozens of his mentees are now leading their own research labs at top universities across the country,” said Shen.
The CIDD also houses an Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center, one of fourteen of its kind. Supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the center performs studies on gene-brain-behavior relationships, early brain and behavior development, and early detection and intervention.
Media contact: Kendall Daniels Rovinsky, Communications Specialist, UNC Health | UNC School of Medicine
