Dr. Catherine Main
Senior Lecturer and Program Coordinator
About
Catherine Main has nearly three decades of work on behalf of young children and their families in
the state of Illinois. Her work in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago
(UIC) has included innovative and responsive program development and coordination in Early
Childhood Education. Main designed and developed a Blended Early Childhood/Early Childhood
Special Education program and an Early Childhood Alternative Licensure program. Both programs
were the first of their kind approved by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and both reflect
a focused, much needed response to specific demands for early childhood teachers in Chicago. She is
a recipient of the 2019 UIC Award for Excellence in Teaching. As the Principal Investigator (PI) on
the recently awarded Department of Education (DOE) grant, The Chicago Early Childhood
Preparation and Pathway (CECPP) Partnership, she is currently leading a research team to enhance
and expand the UIC Early Childhood Alternative Licensure program. She regularly presents her
work at national conferences and as an invited speaker at local conferences and is past-President of
the Illinois Association for Early Childhood Teacher Educators (ILAECTE) and a member of the
board for Chicago Youth Centers.