Audrey Gifford - President

Audrey Gifford, Ph.D., was elected president of Pittsburgh Freethought Community in January 2025, and is deeply grateful for the mentorship of our immediate past president Dana Morganroth as she gradually takes over that role.

Dr. Gifford was trained as a musician as a young woman but switched her focus when her daughter was diagnosed with severe autism in 1987. She spent her career as a clinician and researcher in the treatment of people with disabilities, and has a passion for the scientific study of the behavior of living organisms, especially humans. She was raised “casually Catholic” and as a young woman did not spend much thought on the Church (except as a way to ruin a chance to sleep in on Sunday mornings!) but eventually rejected the idea of a merciful (or any) God in light of the suffering she witnessed by her child, her patients, and their families. It was clear to her that any effective treatment for her daughter and others with similar disabilities would come not from a deity, but from people implementing scientifically developed treatments, and she dedicated her life to that cause. In addition to her clinical work she has published and presented on increasing the independence of children with disabilities in inclusive settings, increasing healthy food choices in adults with mental illness, social language among typical preschoolers, case studies on children with optimal outcomes for early intensive behavior analytic treatment for severe autism, parenting a child with severe disabilities, and other topics.

She founded and ran two therapy practices in California and Connecticut specializing in the treatment of children with autism, and also served as a contractor with school districts in Connecticut for treating children with a variety of disabilities in the education setting. She worked as a doctoral level clinician with adults with mental illness in Massachusetts before retiring. She has four children and lives with one of her daughters in a multi-generational household in Pittsburgh.