Faculty & Staff

Faculty

Heather Peshak George, PhD Professor & Division Director Phone: 813-974-6440 Fax: 813-974-6115 Office: MHC 2136 Send an email View 2024 Curriculum Vitae

Heather Peshak George is a  Professor in the Department of Child & Family Studies at the University of South Florida and director of the  Florida Center for Inclusive Communities (FCIC), a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD).  Her areas of interest include positive behavior support, school-wide discipline, systems-level change, implementation and function-based behavior support planning, and international applications of PBIS.

Dr. George is a Primary Investigator or Co-Primary Investigator on a number of Positive Behavior Support Projects that she Co-Directs including:

• Florida’s Positive Behavior Support Project: A Multi-Tiered System of Support (FLPBIS:MTSS), funded by the Florida Department of Education, Bureau of Exceptional Education and Student Services.
• National Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS Center), funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs. 
• Florida’s School Climate Transformation (Florida SCT) grant, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Safe and Healthy Students. 

Dr. George brings extensive experience in providing training and technical assistance in PBIS across the continuum across a variety of settings and in coordinating systems change efforts at the local, state, national and international level to promote an integrated approach to implementing evidence-based practices through a multi-tiered framework.  She is the past-President (2014-2017) of the international Association for Positive Behavioral Support (APBS) and has served on the APBS Board of Directors since 2009 where she currently is serving as an Emeritus Ex-Officio.  She teaches the graduate level course, Behavior Consultation and Collaborative Systems Change offered through the online PBS Certificate program at USF and serves as a Consulting Editor for Preventing School Failure. She has directed over $25 million dollars in external funding, delivered more than 150 national and international presentations and facilitated more than 300 trainings and workshops. Dr. George has published over 30 peer reviewed research articles and book chapters, more than 40 technical reports, and over 15 instruments and training curricula related to PBIS.

Before joining USF, Dr. George served as the Technical Assistance Coordinator of Louisiana’s state-wide PBIS Project. Prior to that time, she served as Administrator for a community-based respite, rehabilitation, and vocational program in Indiana. Dr. George received her M.S. in Clinical Psychology at Indiana State University in 1994 and her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Special Education, School Psychology and Reading at Louisiana State University in 2000.