Find a Study Site Near You
Participating Study Sites:
United States
Canada
United Kingdom
Participation is welcomed in any form: in person, virtual, or a combination of the two.
Emory University
Chloe Holbrook, Ph.D.
Dr. Chloe Holbrook is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and a licensed psychologist in the Marcus Autism Center Clinical Assessment and Diagnostic Department and the Early Intervention Department. Her clinical interests include using assessments to inform treatment decisions and early identification of children with autism spectrum disorder. Dr. Holbrook’s research interests include early intervention services for children with developmental delays and infant-mother interactions on child development.
Cheryl Klaiman, Ph.D.
Dr. Cheryl Klaiman is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine and the Director of the Assessment and Diagnosis Program at Marcus Autism Center. She leads the study of the EarliPoint device, an FDA-approved diagnostic tool for children over 16 months of age that will be used in the Next Gen Sibs project. At the Marcus Autism Center, Dr. Klaiman investigates techniques to aid in the differential diagnosis of individuals with autism, such as eye-tracking, ERP and functional MRI, early diagnosis and treatment strategies, and genetic comorbidities, such as fragile X syndrome and Williams syndrome.
University of California, Davis
Sally Ozonoff, Ph.D.
Dr. Sally Ozonoff is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on early manifestations of autism and infant screening and diagnosis. Since 2003, Dr. Ozonoff has directed a prospective investigation that follows children at familial risk for autism from birth through adolescence. She and her team are also developing a video-based screening tool for autism in infancy. Dr. Ozonoff has spent her career understanding the earliest features of ASD in infants and their siblings, now expanding to include the children of those siblings.
University of California, Los Angeles
Catherine Lord, Ph.D.
Dr. Catherine Lord is the George Tarjan Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Her research and clinical work are aimed at improving methods of identifying strengths and difficulties in individuals with possible ASD and working with families and individuals to maximize independence and well-being for all concerned. She has developed various diagnostic instruments (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule – ADOS, Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised – ADI-R, and Social Communication Questionnaire – SCQ) that describe individual profiles of skills and weaknesses and has carried out longitudinal studies from age 15 months up to 30 years with the goal of identifying protective and risk factors that influence milestones of progress.
Nicole Rosen, Ph.D.
Dr. Nicole Rosen is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. She has been involved with the Next Gen Sibs project since its inception, from assessing the needs/interests of siblings to developing protocols for monitoring the development of the next generation. Dr. Rosen also works with the UCLA Hispanic Neuropsychiatric Center of Excellence, in partnership with the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, to support the needs of foster care youth through early developmental monitoring, neuropsychological assessments, and provider training/education. Her research interests center on examining and supporting the bidirectional relationship between autistic individuals and their siblings across the lifespan.
University of Miami
Daniel Messinger, Ph.D.
Dr. Daniel Messinger is an interdisciplinary developmental psychologist who serves as the Director of the Child Division in the Department of Psychology and the Director of the Early Play and Development Laboratory at the University of Miami. His research uses machine learning to paint an objective picture of children’s interactions and employs computational models to understand how repeated interactions become development over time. Dr. Messinger has extensive experience leading longitudinal research initiatives, and his current projects focus on investigating the temporal dynamics of communication to understand infants’ and children’s social, emotional, and language development.
Michael Alessandri, Ph.D.
Dr. Michael Alessandri is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychology with a secondary appointment in Pediatrics. He is also the Executive Director of the Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD), where he oversees numerous community-based service programs designed to support individuals with autism and their families in South Florida. Dr. Alessandri’s current research interests are aimed at improving early screening of children with autism through primary care, evaluating parent coaching interventions aimed at improving symptom presentation and developmental trajectories in young children with autism, evaluating comprehensive and other school-based and clinic-based treatment approaches for individuals with autism, and assessing factors that influence autism family adaptation and coping. He is also actively involved in studies investigating the underlying genetics and neuroscience of autism.
Rodrigo Nadal, B.S.
Rodrigo Nadal is a Research Associate at the University of Miami’s Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD). In this role, he helps coordinate various research projects and manages the Autism Spectrum Assessment Clinic (ASAC). Rodrigo also works with the University of Miami’s Child and Adolescent Mood and Anxiety Treatment (CAMAT) Program. Prior to working at the University of Miami, Rodrigo worked with the Florida Exposure and Anxiety Research (FEAR) Lab at the University of Florida and the Neurodisparities and Health Justice Lab at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Washington University School of Medicine
Natasha Marrus, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Natasha Marrus is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and Assistant Professor at the Washington University in Saint Louis School of Medicine. Her clinical practice is centered on early childhood evaluations for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), as well as school consultations for students with ASD and associated psychiatric conditions. Dr. Marrus’s developmental neuroscience research aims to identify early causal mechanisms of ASD. Her other projects center on measuring phenotypes of ASD as related to social motivation, tracking the development of neurocircuitry which underlies social, language, and motor function through neuroimaging, and designing experimental paradigms to assess ASD risk.
Daniel Gray, M.S.W.
Daniel is a Program Manager at WashU School of Medicine in St. Louis. He manages protocols and recruitment for several studies in autism and Down syndrome, including for the multi-site Infant Brain Imaging Study (IBIS). He was previously the manager of the WashU Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center working to support faculty across a variety of disciplines in IDD research. Prior to working at WashU, he worked at a community mental health center managing housing programs for chronically homeless individuals with severe mental illness and substance addiction.
Yale University
Dr. Suzanne Macari is a Senior Research Scientist at the Yale Child Study Center, where she co-directs the Social and Affective Neuroscience of Autism Program. Dr. Macari’s research focuses on the prodrome and early phenotype of ASD in the first year of life in infants at high risk for the disorder, innovations in early screening, as well as emotional reactivity and temperament in very young children with ASD.
In addition, Dr. Macari is collaborating with colleagues in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine to conduct secondary screening in infants born prematurely and with other risk factors for ASD.
Katarzyna Chawarska, Ph.D.
Dr. Katarzyna Chawarska leads the NIH Autism Center of Excellence at the Yale Child Study Center. She is a leading expert in research on identifying early diagnostic markers and novel treatment targets in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In her clinical practice, Dr. Chawarska specializes in early diagnosis of ASD as well as developmental follow-up of infants at risk for ASD due to familial factors (e.g., having an older sibling with ASD), genetic factors (e.g., having a syndrome related to ASD such as Fragile X), or due to prenatal or perinatal complications such as premature birth.
University of Alberta
Lonnie Zwaigenbaum, M.D.
Dr. Lonnie Zwaigenbaum is the Director of the Autism Research Centre. He and his team have followed a high-risk cohort of infant siblings of children with autism to identify early behavioral and neurobiological markers of autism with the goal of aiding in earlier diagnosis and studying basic processes (e.g., attention, emotion, executive control) that may underlie later symptoms. Dr. Zwaigenbaum’s research also includes genetic studies of autism using molecular and genomic strategies, a national longitudinal study of developmental trajectories and outcomes in newly diagnosed preschool children with autism, and a qualitative study of the values, priorities and worldviews of families of children with autism.
Lori Sacrey, Ph.D.
Dr. Lori Sacrey is a Research Associate with Dr. Lonnie Zwaigenbaum and is a registered provisional psychologist. She completed her Ph.D. in Behavioural Neuroscience from the University of Lethbridge, where her thesis focused on motor and sensory development in infants as well as adults with Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease. Dr. Sacrey provides research support to the Canadian Infant Sibling Study, the Pathways in ASD study, and the Social ABCs study, amongst others.
Birkbeck University of London
Emily Jones, Ph.D.
Emily is a Professor at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London. Her research interests centre on understanding the cognitive and neural mechanisms that drive variability in developmental trajectories. In this context, she runs a number of prospective longitudinal studies of typical and atypical neurodevelopment in infants and directs electrophysiological and eyetracking acquisition across several large-scale European and Global Health studies of children and adults with neurodevelopmental conditions.
Jannath (JJ) Begum Ali, Ph.D.
JJ is a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive
Development, Birkbeck, University of London. Her research interests are primarily focused on trajectories of early development and how different factors may impact these trajectories of (a)typical development. She is particularly interested in (multi)sensorimotor interactions, infant sleep and attention and how these factors affect development. She uses a variety of methods to investigate these questions, with expertise in neuroimaging (EEG, fNIRS), neurocognitive (eye tracking) and physiological (ECG, acceleromtery) measures. She is the Senior Researcher on a number of studies that examine the early emergence of Autism and ADHD in infants
enriched for neurodevelopemental conditions (STAARS) and those with genetic conditions (EDEN).