Rachel Vannatta

Implementation Program Director

Rachel Vannatta, PhD, LCPC, is Implementation Program Director on the Parent, Infant, Early Childhood (PIEC) team at Innovations Institute, University of Connecticut School of Social Work. Rachel comes to her work at Innovations with almost 15 years of counseling experience with a wide range of populations and in multiple settings. In her current role, she leads efforts around implementation of evidence-based practices in early childhood care and education environments, focusing specifically on implementation of the Pyramid Model for Supporting Social Emotional Competence in Infants and Young Children. In addition, Rachel assists in developing capacity of our internal team and external partners on the principles of implementation science and their application to system-wide implementation efforts. She partners with the evaluation team to support development of evaluation plans and methods of data collection throughout our Pyramid Model implementation projects. Rachel has a BA in Psychology from Northwestern University, an MSEd from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and a PhD in Counselor Education from George Washington University.