ELAB: University of Minnesota

We are long overdue for an ELAB update….and despite the challenging time we find ourselves in, we have much to celebrate.

Today we celebrate ELAB grad students. First, Brandon Almy and Colleen Doyle both “matched” at internship sites and will be heading off to complete their Clinical Internships this summer, the final requirement to complete their PhDs in Developmental Psychopathology and Clinical Science.

Two graduate students received National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF-GRFP) awards, Trevor Day and Melody Altschuler. Trevor and Melody represent 2 out of a total of 18 awards made in Developmental Psychology nationally.

Finally, Robin Sifre and Carolyn Lasch both received competitive fellowships as they come off their NSF-GRFP awards. Robin was awarded a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (DDF) from the UMN Grad School and Carolyn was awarded a position on ICD’s T32 training grant in Developmental Psychopathology.

What an amazing group of trainees!! The lab is exceptionally fortunate to work with such innovative young scholars — these are your leaders of tomorrow — onward!

Infant Brain Imaging Study - IBIS Network is looking for families who have an infant (0 to 6 months old) and at least one older full sibling diagnosed with autism to participate in a study.

See the flyer below for details.

The E-Lab is proud to be a part of the IBIS Network! The goal of the Infant Brain Imaging Study, or IBIS, is to uncover important clues about brain development that can aid early detection of autism. We are now enrolling infants 6 months and younger into the IBIS study. Check out our website to learn more!

Recruitment This study is funded by the NIH as an Autism Center of Excellence under the “Longitudinal MRI Study of Infants at Risk for Autism”

Learn more about the impact of research happening in the ELab by reading this feature in Legacy magazine!

Inside babies' brains The U’s Jed Elison believes imaging is the key to predicting an infant's chances of developing autism

Elab mascot Yen is here for a visit! We miss him and his dad so much!

Our new Elab psychologist is Casey Burrows! Casey Burrows, PhD, LP, is an Assistant Professor in Pediatrics and lead clinician on IBIS studies in the ELAB. Casey received her PhD from the University of Miami, where she studied behavioral and neural predictors of co-occuring anxiety and depression in youth with autism spectrum disorders. She then completed her post-doctoral training in the MNLEND program at the University of MN, where she contributed to the CDC’s autism monitoring project, conducted psychological evaluations for ASD, and led treatment groups at the Autism and Neurodevelopment Clinic. When Casey is not in the lab, she enjoys rock climbing, biking around Minneapolis, and baking sourdough bread.

The Elab has hired a new post doc! Emmanuel Bonney is a pediatric physical therapist specializing in autism spectrum disorder and related neurodevelopmental disabilities. He is a Fogarty Post-doctoral Fellow at the ELAB. Dr Bonney has clinical expertise in motor behavior and has designed numerous movement programmes for children with movement difficulties in low-income areas of Ghana and South Africa.

His research is focused on developing behavioural assessments of motor phenotyping to improve characterization of risk profiles for autism and developmental disabilities. Dr Bonney’s work also extends to developing sensorimotor interventions for children with neurodevelopmental disorders. Dr Bonney is currently evaluating the performance of an innovative population-based screening approach for autism spectrum disorder in Uganda. This study could have far reaching implications for early detection of autism in low- and middle-income settings.

The Elab has been busy hiring this summer. Say hello to our newest staff member Sharlotte! Sharlotte recently graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor of Science in Biology, with focuses in Spanish and Public Health. She began as an ELAB researcher in June 2019, and primarily works on the Baby Conectome Project collecting biological samples and conducting behavioral assessments and eye tracking. Sharlotte is especially interested in maternal-child health, and how prenatal environment and breastmilk influence child health and development.

Say hello to Melody! Melody is our newest graduate student! Melody Altschuler is a first year Ph.D. student in the Developmental Psychopathology and Clinical Science program at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development. She is interested in studying the neural and developmental processes that contribute to individual differences in social cognition and attention in both typical and atypical populations. She is also interested in understanding why individuals with autism spectrum disorder have such striking differences in their development. Prior to joining the ICD, Melody received her B.A. in psychology from Bates College, where she wrote her honors thesis in the Labs of Cognitive Neuroscience at Boston Children’s Hospital. She then spent two years at the Yale Child Study Center as a Sara S. Sparrow Fellow in Clinical Neuroscience.

We're recruiting! If your child meets our age requirements please email us at [email protected] or send us a DM here on FB!

The Elab’s own Dr. Charisse Pickron’s latest research!

https://www.facebook.com/10400965/posts/10100657152028965?s=505804366&sfns=mo

Infants’ Individuation of Faces by Gender By 3 months of age, infants can perceptually distinguish faces based upon differences in gender. However, it is still unknown when infants begin using these perceptual differences to represent faces in a conceptual, kind-based manner. The current study examined this issue by using a violation-of-exp...