Alison Singer

Alison Singer is the co-founder and president of the Autism Science Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding innovative autism research and supporting the needs of people with autism. As the mother of a 25-year-old daughter with autism and the legal guardian of an older brother with autism, she is a natural advocate. Prior to founding the Autism Science Foundation in 2009, she served as the executive vice president of Autism Speaks and as a vice president at NBC. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a bachelor’s in economics and received her MBA from Harvard Business School. In 2020, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Emory University.

Singer served on the federal Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) for 12 years, where she chaired the Safety and Housing Workgroups, and served on the subcommittee responsible for writing an annual strategic plan to guide federal spending for autism research. From 2018-2021 Alison served on the Board of Education of the Scarsdale Union Free Public School district, where she also held the vice president position for three semesters. She’s on the executive boards of the Yale Child Study Center, the Seaver Autism Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the Marcus Autism Center at Emory University, and the University of North Carolina Autism Research Center. She also serves on the external advisory board of the CDC’s Center for Developmental Disabilities, and the New York State Immunization Advisory Committee. In addition, Singer resides on the board of directors of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) and chairs the INSAR Communications Committee. In 2012 the American Academy of Pediatrics named her an “autism champion.” In 2017 she received the INSAR “Outstanding Research Advocate” award and in 2018, she received the New York Families for Autistic Children Research Advocacy Award.