Dr. Innocenti is semi-retired but remains a Research Professor at the Institute for Disabilities, Research, Policy & Practice, a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities at Utah State University. Prior to his retirement he was Director of the Research & Evaluation Division. He was on the Board of Directors for the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC). He is a Past-President for the Division for Early Childhood (DEC) of CEC.  He is a member of the Zero to Three Fellow’s Academy. 

Dr. Innocenti has over 40 years of experience working with infants and young children at-risk and with disabilities and their families through multiple research and model demonstration projects. His approach to issues is based on a transdisciplinary model that recognizes the contribution of different disciplines and stakeholders. He has emphasized research conducted in and for communities.  He has served as Principal Investigator on several research projects including the ten-year Longitudinal Institute on the Effects and Costs of Early Intervention for Children with Disabilities and the Bilingual Early Language and Literacy Support (BELLS) Project. He was Principal Investigator for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded Cache County site of the National Children’s Study and now the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) project.  Other research projects have examined various aspects of intervention and outcomes for families and children in early intervention, in Head Start, and in "at-risk" environments. Dr. Innocenti also has extensive experience in model demonstration and training projects that have examined areas such as social interaction, child transition, naturalistic intervention, parent-child interaction, and service systems. He has been an evaluator for several projects. Recent projects focused on development of assessment measures and curriculum, home visiting, preschool to prevent later special education needs, and evaluation.  He helped pioneer the use of Social Impact Bonds for providing preschool services for children at-risk for school failure. 

Most recently he has focused on home visitation programs. He is an author of the book, Developmental Parenting, A Guide for Early Childhood Practitioners.  He is a developer of the PICCOLO (Parenting Interaction with Children:  Checklist of Observations Linked to Outcomes), a measure of the parent-child interaction, and the HOVRS (Home Visit Rating Scale), a measure of home visitor behavior.  He is active training programs in the developmental parenting model and the use of the PICCOLO and HOVRS tools. He is a co-chair of a professional community of practice focused on coaching in home visiting which has resulted in publications on the topic.