Ainsley Buck graduated with distinction from Duke University in 2022 with a B.S. in Neuroscience and certificate in Child Policy Research. While at Duke, Ainsley was a research assistant in the Duke Early Experience and the Developing Brain (DEED) Lab and a student researcher on the Duke Bass Connections North Carolina Early Childhood Action Plan team focusing on social determinants of health for children ages 0-5. In the DEED lab, she studied factors associated with aberrant early development using neuroimaging and dyadic head-mounted eye-tracking. Outside of research, Ainsley provided behavioral therapy to toddlers with autism and other developmental delays.
As a Cohen Fellow, Ainsley conducted eye-tracking research to study social visual engagement in children with and without autism. She engaged in a variety of projects focused on younger siblings of children with autism, involving recurrence rates, clinician certainty, dyadic interactions, and caregiver-mediated intervention. Ainsley is currently a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania working with Dr. David Mandell to better understand how to implement autism interventions within existing systems of care.
Hannah Davies graduated with highest honors from Brandeis University in May 2022 with a M.Sc. in Neuroscience, a B.Sc. in Neuroscience and Psychology and a minor in Chemistry. During her undergraduate studies, Hannah worked as a research assistant in the Knight’s Laboratory studying the association of various childhood traumas with dissociative symptoms in borderline personality disorder and volunteered as a clinical research assistant at the VA Medical Center in Jamaica Plain studying the impact of exercise on relieving Parkinsonism symptomatology. Hannah performed her graduate research and honors thesis under Dr. Paul DiZio in the Ashton Graybiel Spatial Orientation Laboratory (AGSOL), where she conducted several experiments examining the mechanisms behind visual balancing after omitting position and/or motion visual cues. Outside of research, Hannah coordinated the “SPECTRUM” volunteer program at Brandeis University, providing families with mentoring, tutoring, and group play opportunities for their children with developmental disabilities.
As a Cohen Fellow, Hannah used eye-tracking technology to assess social visual engagement in all children, both typically developing and those with, or at elevated likelihood of having, autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Working as a research coordinator on the FirstFocus Study, she conducted eye-tracking sessions at pediatricians’ offices to determine the effectiveness of a newly FDA-approved portable eye-tracking device on predicting developmental outcomes. Hannah also researched how ASD recurrence rates in younger siblings changed over time with the emergence of new ASD research findings. After finishing the Cohen fellowship, Hannah planned to pursue an MD/PhD to become a physician-scientist.
Jamie Kortanek (they/them) graduated summa cum laude from Carleton College in 2022 with a B.A. in Psychology and distinction in the major. At Carleton, they worked in the Meerts Behavioral Neuroscience Lab, using a rat model to explore neural, hormonal, and experiential factors that affect female sexual function. They also worked in the Primate Cognition Lab at Carleton, exploring the relationship between Alzheimer’s-like neuropathology and cognitive decline in cotton-top tamarins. Additionally, with support from an undergraduate research fellowship, Jamie investigated early developmental profiles in children with 22q11.2 copy number variants within the Jeste Lab at UCLA.
As an Autistic individual from a neurodiverse family, Jamie had a deep passion for supporting neurodivergent individuals in accessing meaningful engagement, navigating daily challenges, and achieving their goals. Jamie was also passionate about advocacy and community-building within Marcus, as well as in autistic and neurodivergent communities outside of Marcus. As a Cohen Fellow, Jamie collected neuroimaging and eye-tracking data with infants, school-aged children, and adults. Jamie used functional data analysis to investigate relationships between visual engagement trajectories in early infancy and expressive/receptive language trajectories in toddlerhood for both autistic and non-autistic samples. After their time at Marcus, Jamie intended to become an academic clinician involved in providing Occupational Therapy services as well as conducting research at the intersection of neuroscience and occupational science.
Originally from Istanbul, Turkey, Alp Köksal graduated with highest honors from Brown University in 2022 with a B.A. in Biology and Music. During his undergraduate studies, he worked as a research assistant at the Fallon Lab focusing on the Muscle-Specific Kinase-Bone Morphogenic Protein pathways, specifically focused on developing treatment models inducing adult hippocampal neurogenesis against Alzheimer’s Disease. His work on the characterization of memory, locomotion, and anxiety in a mouse model of increased hippocampal neurogenesis culminated in his honors thesis. He worked with The Miracle Project of New England, which provides after-school and summer activities for children and young adults on the spectrum through music, dance and theater therapy, as a co-actor and an administrative assistant.
As a Cohen Fellow, Alp worked as a research coordinator for the FirstFocus Study, which aimed to collaborate with pediatrician’s offices in Atlanta to bring the MAC-ID eye-tracking device into the community and establish it as a diagnostic tool for ASD. Additionally, he was interested in investigating the emergence of social smiling in infants, as well as music cognition in autistic and typically developing children. After his time at Marcus, Alp wanted to pursue a medical degree.
Hannah Tokish graduated with distinction from Cornell University in 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Spanish. At Cornell, Hannah worked as a research assistant in the Eleanor J. Gibson Laboratory of Developmental Psychology, studying the development of language in a social context. She pursued an independent project on the reward value of unimodal versus multimodal social cues in typically developing infants. During a clinical research internship in the Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at Cohen Children’s Medical Center, she was drawn to research on developmental disorders and decided to pursue further training at the intersection of developmental and clinical psychology. As a Cohen fellow, Hannah used eye tracking to study the development of social visual engagement in typically developing children and children with autism. She was also interested in exploring the neural underpinnings of autism in order to help guide early detection and intervention. Hannah is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Michigan State University.
Tristan Ponzo graduated with distinction in 2018 from Cornell University with a B.S. in Human Development, concentrating in Human Behavioral Neuroscience and minoring in Biological Sciences. During his time there, Tristan participated in research examining the hot and cold cognitive factors of risky decision making in adolescents and adults at both the behavioral and neural levels. He used the imaging skills he accumulated in this role to complete a research fellowship at the Mayo Clinic, where he applied various imaging techniques to examine the myocardial mechanics of early-stage metabolic syndrome as well as folic acid-induced acute kidney damage in porcine and rodent models.
As a Cohen fellow, Tristan investigated the predictive power of eye-tracking data compared to gold standard diagnostic measures of ASD. Tristan also worked on the neuroimaging team, where he sought to relate features of infant brain networks to measures of variance in social visual engagement. Tristan is currently a medical student at Vanderbilt University.
Originally from Panama City, Panama, Adriana Mendez graduated from Emory University in 2018 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Economics. While at Emory, she completed a senior thesis assessing the implications of bilingualism on learning in adults. She also worked as a research assistant at the Bauer Memory Lab where she studied memory development in school-aged children. Additionally, as a research assistant at the Atlanta VA Medical Center she worked with adults with chronic pain who had served in the United States armed forces. Finally, she was a Practicum Student at the Marcus Autism Center Severe Behavior Unit, where she worked to mitigate severe behaviors in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
As a fellow, she studied the impacts of bilingual early-life language exposure on measures of sociovisual engagement through eye-tracking. Adriana continues this and other lines of research focused on ameliorating health disparities in the diagnosis and treatment of ASD now as a graduate student in Clinical Psychology at Emory under the mentorship of Dr. Ami Klin.
Originally from Philadelphia, PA, Sarah Markert graduated with honors from University of Pittsburgh in 2017 with a B.S. in Psychology and a minor in Children’s Literature. She worked as an undergraduate research assistant in the Infant Communication Lab, part of Pitt’s Early Autism Study, researching infant language, gesture, and motor development. Her undergraduate research culminated in a senior honors thesis that examined maternal responses to infant pre-speech vocalization types and subsequent language development in children at high and low risk for ASD.
As a Cohen fellow, Sarah conducted eye-tracking research with infants and toddlers with and without ASD. At Marcus, she pursued a project investigating the adaptive value of attending to social stimuli in children with ASD and William’s Syndrome, specifically interested in identifying disorder-specific visual attention patterns, and how moment-to-moment attention to different features of the face impacts language development. Sarah is currently a graduate student in Clinical Psychology at Duke University under Dr. Michael S. Gaffrey.
Aiden Ford graduated from the University of Connecticut in 2017 with a B.S. in Physiology & Neurobiology and Neurodevelopment & Health, and minors in Anthropology and Neuroscience. At UConn, she conducted undergraduate research assessing the behavioral and neurostructural phenotypes of animal models of neurodevelopmental pathology with specific focus for her honors thesis on the TS2-neo mouse model of Timothy Syndrome mediated-ASD.
As a Cohen fellow, Aiden collected eye-tracking data from infants and toddlers across the developmental spectrum. Her first year project focused on mapping the patterns of time-dependent visual scanning in cohorts of children with ASD and Williams Syndrome during moments of gaze-cued joint attention with the aim of investigating the pathways by which children orient to intentional object use. Aiden is currently a graduate student in Neuroscience at Emory University and continues to work with Dr. Sarah Shultz to investigate the mechanisms by which dyadic social experience contributes to infant neurobehavioral development.
Originally from San Diego, CA, Megan Micheletti graduated with honors from UCLA with a B.S. in Psychobiology and a minor in Applied Developmental Psychology. Her undergraduate honors research at UCLA’s Semel Institute focused on the parent and child factors associated with ASD service receipt. She also worked as a research assistant in UCLA’s ADHD and Development Lab and the Fernald Child Study Center. As a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience, Meg worked on projects quantifying the moment-by-moment changes in infants’ visual attention over the first two years of life and investigating the effects of early developmental surveillance on ASD children’s clinical outcomes. Meg is currently a clinical psychology Ph.D. student at The University of Texas at Austin.
Originally from Bainbridge Island, WA, Isabella (Isa) Stallworthy graduated with honors from Middlebury College in 2015 with a B.A. in Neuroscience. She grew up overseas, spending time in Bolivia, England, and Myanmar. At Middlebury, she led research exploring the physiological and cognitive effects of long-term meditation practice and its link to prosocial behavior, and how the testing effect modulates associative memory. Her senior honors project investigated how top-down attentional control and emotion influence episodic memory. As a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience, Isa examined how social smiling and visual engagement influence infant-caregiver dyadic interactions in typically developing infants and those who develop autism. Isa is a graduate student in the Ph.D. in Child Psychology program at the Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota.
Originally from Erie, PA, Julia Yurkovic graduated from the University of Rochester in 2015. She graduated with a B.S. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences, a B.A. in Psychology, and a minor in American Sign Language. Her senior thesis used fMRI and behavioral measures to test how visuospatial working memory and numerical processing contributed to mathematical achievement and the fronto-parietal math network in 3- to 5-year-old children. As a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience, her projects include examining visual social engagement patterns in a large sample of school-aged children to provide a framework for parsing heterogeneity in autism. Julia is now a graduate student in Developmental Psychology and Cognitive Science at Indiana University.
Originally from Portland, OR, Lindsay Olson graduated from Whitman College in 2012 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Spanish. Her senior honors thesis examined the effects of socioeconomic status on identity development in adolescents. After Whitman, Lindsay worked as a behavior interventionist with young children who have autism and related disorders. She was also a research assistant at Oregon Health and Science University where she investigated differences in pragmatic language use between children with ASD and those who are typically developing. As a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience from 2014-2016, she participated in eye-tracking research with infants, toddlers, and adolescents with and without autism. She investigated the extent to which longitudinal patterns of social engagement differentiate typically developing infants from those diagnosed with ASD. She earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of California San Diego and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California San Francisco.
Originally from New Jersey, Robin Sifre graduated from Brown University with a B.S. in Cognitive Neuroscience. Her senior honors thesis explored the cognitive mechanisms underlying punishment judgments, and why we punish accidental agents. In addition, she also investigated how the development of controlled visual attention in infants interacts with learning and memory. As a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience from 2014-2016, her research examined how visual attention to social stimuli during infancy influences later cognitive and social outcomes. Robin earned a PhD from the University of Minnesota's Institute of Child Development and is now a Data Scientist for EarliTec Diagnostics, which aims to improve early identification of autism through eye-tracking technology.
Rachel Sandercock, a Philadelphia native, graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2013 with a B.Phil. (B.S. with honors) in Psychology and a B.A. in English literature with a certificate in children’s literature. Rachel’s undergraduate research focused on the role of gesture use as a predictor of language development in infants at high genetic risk for autism spectrum disorder. As a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience from 2013-2015, Rachel examined how smiling behavior in infants with ASD may be indicative of very early deviations from the normative course of social development. She completed her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado.
A military kid, Alaina Wrencher was born in the Netherlands. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2013 with a B.Phil. (B.S. with honors) in Psychology, a minor in Administration of Justice, and a certificate in American Sign Language. Her senior honors thesis explored whether a novel, syllable-based orthography of English that utilizes face images (as opposed to letters) might improve reading skills for individuals with reading disorders, such as dyslexia. As a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience, her research assessed the extent to which eye-tracking measures of social disability can serve as successful endpoints for the assessment of new treatments. Alaina now works as a diagnostic medical sonographer in Montgomery, AL: she applies her research experience to help close gaps in service provision for low-income racial minorities, especially black women.
Originally from Diamond Bar, CA, Eugene Kim graduated from the University of California, Irvine in 2012 with a B.A. in Cognitive Psychology and a minor in Linguistics. As an undergraduate, Eugene was involved in a visual perception and neuroimaging laboratory where he investigated the effects of biological motion cues on visual-spatial attention. As a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience, he participated in eye-tracking research with infants, toddlers and adolescents with autism. Eugene is interested in the early learning mechanisms implicated in the ontogeny of adaptive social functioning and their underlying neural substrate. He is currently completing a PhD program in Developmental Psychology at Indiana University at Bloomington.
Grace Ann Marrinan graduated from Princeton University in 2012 with an A.B. in Psychology and a Certificate in Neuroscience. Her undergraduate thesis investigated the relationship between verbatim memory for language and a local bias of attention within other perceptual domains among typical individuals. As a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience she assisted with eye-tracking studies of infants, toddlers, and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Grace Ann is interested in exploring intrinsic motivations and characteristics of the visual scene that contribute to patterns of dynamic visual scanning of individuals with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder. She plans to complete a post-baccalaureate, pre-medical training program.
Serene Habayeb, who grew up in Dubai, UAE, graduated from the University of Rochester in 2011 with a B.S. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences and a minor in Psychology. As an undergraduate, she conducted research in a developmental neuropsychology lab working on an fMRI study investigating the neural basis of audiovisual integration and language comprehension in autism. Serene was a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience from 2011-2013. Serene completed her PhD in Clinical Psychology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC and is now an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at George Washington University. She is also a practicing psychologist at Children’s National Hospital.
Tawny Tsang graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in music. She was involved in a cognition and action laboratory as an undergraduate where she explored a variety of topics including cerebellar ataxia, reaching in virtual environments, and the role of dopamine in reward and movement. As a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience from 2011-2013, Tawny explored the development of oculomotor functions in infants at high- and low-risk for developing ASD and their relation to visual social scanning. She completed a PhD in Developmental Psychology at UCLA and now works as a User Experience Research Manager at Meta.
Originally from Atlanta, GA, Jessica Jones graduated from Stanford University in 2010 with a B.A. in Human Biology. As an undergraduate, she conducted independent research designed to investigate the relationship between social support provided to parents after a child’s traumatic brain injury and subsequent child and family outcomes. She was a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience from 2010-2012. Jessica is interested in the relationship between early neuro-plasticity in children and the effectiveness of early intervention for children with ASD. She attended medical school at Case Western Reserve University.
Andrea Wieckowski graduated from Princeton University with an A.B. in Psychology and a Certificate in Neuroscience in 2010. As an undergraduate, Andrea was involved in research exploring the perception of audiovisual speech. As a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience from 2010-2012, Andrea was interested in extending her undergraduate research to investigate how toddlers with autism perceive audiovisual synchrony under varying degrees of social context. In addition, she worked as a research coordinator and volunteer in an early intervention program at the Marcus Autism Center. She earned her PhD at Virginia Tech exploring co-occurring symptoms, such as anxiety, in adolescents with autism. She is now at the A.J. Drexel Autism Institute at Drexel University.
A native of Oakland, CA, Jenn Moriuchi is a graduate student in Clinical Psychology at Emory University. She received her B.A. in Neuroscience from Wellesley College, where she conducted research in a behavioral neuroscience laboratory using a mouse model of Rett Syndrome. As a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience from 2009-2011, Jenn studied gaze aversion in toddlers with autism as well as phenotypic heterogeneity in school-age children with autism. Jenn earned her PhD at Emory University under Drs. Ami Klin and Warren Jones and is now affiliated with Rush University Medical Group as a Clinical Psychologist.
Originally from Iowa City, Iowa, Katherine Warnell received her B.A. in Psychology and Linguistics from the University of Michigan in 2009. A Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience from 2009-2011, Katherine is interested in the early detection of autism spectrum disorders and in the relationship between social cognition and language development in both typically developing infants and in infants at risk for autism. She earned a PhD in developmental psychology at the University of Maryland and now studies differences in social cognitive development in typically developing and autistic individuals at Texas State University.
Laura Edwards, originally from Kingston, Jamaica, graduated from Yale University with a B.S. in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology in 2008. She was a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience from 2008-2010. Laura conducts research on the neurological underpinnings of social cognition, in order to inform the design of developmentally appropriate educational curricula and interventions for children with ASD. She received her doctorate in education from Harvard University in 2015 and completed her postdoctoral research fellowship in the Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience at Boston Children’s Hospital. Laura has returned to Marcus as an Assistant Professor and now helps to lead the fellowship.
Jessie Northrup 2008-2010 graduated from the Cornell University in 2008, with her B.A. in Psychology and Anthropology. As an undergraduate, Jessie was involved in research exploring the social mechanisms that help infants and toddlers develop language. As a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience from 2008-2010, Jessie was interested in applying her undergraduate research to investigate language development in infants with autism and how deficits in social interaction could affect language learning. Her research in the Social Neuroscience Lab investigated perception of audiovisual synchrony under varying degrees of social context in toddlers with autism. She earned her doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. She is now an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, where she studies mother-child interactions, social and emotional development, and autism spectrum disorders.
Originally from San Francisco, CA, Anna Jones received her BA in Cognitive Science with a minor in Environmental Studies from UC San Diego in 2006. During her time as a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience from 2007-2009, Anna investigated implicit measures of social attribution by visual scanning in children with autism. Anna is interested in joint attention, speech development, and finding early diagnostic markers of Autism Spectrum Disorders. Anna completed her PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of California in Santa Barbara. She is now the Clinical Director at the Koegel Autism Center at University of California Santa Barbara and an Autism Clinical Specialist at California Counseling Clinics.
Casey Zampella graduated from the University of Rochester in 2007 with her B.S. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences and a minor in Clinical Psychology. Casey is interested in brain-behavior relationships in clinical populations, particularly in young children with autism spectrum disorders. Casey earned her doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of Rochester and completed her doctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). She currently studies biobehavioral markers of autism at CHOP and is a practicing psychologist.
Sarah Shultz, Ph.D., was a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience from 2006-2008. She earned her doctorate in cognitive psychology from Yale University under Drs. Greg McCarthy and Ami Klin. Sarah is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Emory University’s School of Medicine and co-directs the Pediatric Neuroimaging Core at the Marcus Autism Center, where her research focuses on the neural-behavioral origins of changes in social engagement in autism. Dr. Shultz also co-directs the Cohen Fellowship.
Kelley Knoch-Kabarwal graduated from the University of Rochester in 2006, with her B.A. in Brain and Cognitive Science. As a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience from 2006-2008, Kelley investigated the temporal dynamics of visual fixation patterns in high functioning adolescents with autism while viewing naturalistic social situations. Kelley completed her PhD in Clinical Psychology on a Neuropsychology track, as well as a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Connecticut.
Katelin Carr was the Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience from 2005-2006. Katelin did research as an undergraduate on social skills training for children with autism and completed her degree in History at Yale University. While a Fellow, Katelin studied visual salience in 2 year-old children with autism. She completed her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with Dr. Deborah Fein in the Early Detection Study of Autism Spectrum Disorders at the University of Connecticut. Currently she is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Pediatric Neuropsychology at Connecticut Pediatric Neuropsychology Associates.
Phillip Gorrindo was the Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience from 2005-2006. As an undergraduate, Phil studied Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University, and worked on electrophysiology research in the lab of Dr. Patricia Goldman-Rakic. While a Fellow, Phil worked on computational strategies for analyzing visual scanning as a function of physical image properties. Following the fellowship, Phillip earned an MD PhD at Vanderbilt University. He completed residency at Northwestern University and a postdoctoral fellowship at University of California San Diego. He is now an attending obstetrician-gynecologist at Alameda Health System.