Jill Locke headshot

Jill Locke

Moore Hall 3123
405 Hilgard Avenue

Los Angeles, CA 90095-1521

CV

Jill Locke

Associate Professor In Residence

Jill Locke is an Associate Professor in Residence in the School of Education and Information Studies. To date, her research has focused on the: 1) presentation of social impairment for autistic youth in inclusive school settings; 2) identification of best practices for autistic youth; and 3) understanding of successful implementation and sustainment of evidence-based practices (EBPs) for autistic youth in public school settings. She has expertise in implementation science, human-centered design, and working in collaboration with publicly funded school systems. Most recently, her research has focused on the identification and examination of malleable individual and organizational characteristics that increase teachers’ and paraeducators’ use of evidence-based practices to include and retain autistic children in general education settings and developing and testing implementation strategies to support evidence-based practice use in the K-12 public school system. Her experiences have highlighted the importance of collaborating with public schools and the reality of working within the constraints of publicly funded systems, their timeline (e.g., school calendar year), and with their personnel.

Departments

Areas of Expertise and Advising Interests

Other Affiliations

Titles and Positions

  • Associate Professor In Residence

Education

  • B.A. University of California – Los Angeles (Psychology), 2005

  • M.A. University of California – Los Angeles (Education), 2007

  • Ph.D. University of California – Los Angeles (Education), 2010

  • Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, 2013

Select Publications

  • Locke, J., Williams, N.J., Sridhar, A., Ehrhart, M.G., Dopp, A., Thirion, M., Espeland, C., Riddle, B., Schmitz, K., Hatch, K., Buehler, L., & Lyon, A.R. (2025). Study protocol for testing the efficacy of the Helping Educational Leaders Mobilize Evidence (HELM) implementation strategy in elementary schools: A hybrid type 3 effectiveness-implementation trial. Implementation Science.

  • Locke, J., Corbin, C., Goosey, R., Collins, V., Ehrhart, M.G., Hatch, K., Espeland, C., & Lyon, A.R. (2025). Not getting better but not getting worse: A cluster randomized controlled pilot trial of a leadership implementation strategy. Implementation Research and Practice.

  • Locke, J., Sridhar, A., Shih, W., Shire, S., Eisman, A.B., Kim, E., Du, A., Espeland, C., & Kasari, C. (2025). Study protocol for a hybrid type 3 effectiveness-implementation trial of a team-based implementation strategy to support educators’ use of a social engagement intervention. Implementation Science.

  • Locke, J., Michael, O., Holt, T., Drahota, A., & Dickson, K. (2024). Redesigning an autism evidence-based practice implementation toolkit for middle and high schools. School Mental Health, 16, 727-745.

  • Locke, J., Corbin, C., Collins, V., Ehrhart, M.G., Goosey, R., Hatch, K., Espeland, C., Cook, C.R., & Lyon, A.R. (2024). Helping Educational Leadership Mobilize Evidence (HELM): The iterative redesign of the Leadership for Organizational Change for Implementation (LOCI) intervention for use in schools. Implementation Research and Practice, 5, 26334895241242523.

  • Locke, J., Hernandez, A.M., Joshi, M., Hugh, M.L., Bravo, A., Osuna, A., & Pullmann, M.D. (2022). Supporting the inclusion and retention of autistic students: Exploring teachers’ and paraeducators’ use of evidence-based practices in public elementary schools. Frontiers in Psychiatry – Autism, 13, 961219.

  • Locke, J., Shih, W., Kang-Yi, C., Caramanico, J., Shingledecker, T., Gibson, J., Frederick, L., & Mandell, D.S. (2019). The impact of implementation support on the use of a social engagement intervention for children with autism in public schools. Autism, 23, 834-845.

  • Locke, J., Hassrick, E.M., Stahmer, A.C., Iadarola, S., Boyd, B., Mandell, D.S., Shih, W., Hund, L., & Kasari, C. (2022). Using Novel Implementation Tools for Evidence-based Intervention Delivery (UNITED) across public service systems for three evidence-based autism interventions in under resourced communities. BMC Psychiatry, 22, 478.

  • Bearss, K., Tagavi, D., Lyon, A.R., & Locke, J. (2022). Iterative redesign of a caregiver-mediated intervention for use in educational settings. Autism, 26, 666-677.

  • Locke, J., Kang-Yi, C., Frederick, L., & Mandell, D.S. (2020). Individual and organizational characteristics predicting intervention use for children with autism in schools. Autism, 24, 1152-1163.