Lab Members

Principal Investigators

Ami Klin, Ph.D. is the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar Professor and Chief of the Division of Autism and Developmental Disabilities at Emory University School of Medicine, and Director of the Marcus Autism Center, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of London, and completed clinical and research post-doctoral fellowships at the Yale Child Study Center. He directed the Autism Program at the Yale Child Study Center, Yale University School of Medicine until 2010, where he was the Harris Professor of Child Psychology & Psychiatry. Dr. Klin’s primary research activities focus on the social mind and the social brain, and on aspects of autism from infancy through adulthood. These studies include novel techniques such as the eye-tracking laboratories co-directed with Warren Jones, which allow researchers to see the world through the eyes of individuals with autism. Dr. Klin is the author of over 180 publications in the field of autism and related conditions. He is also the co-editor of a textbook on Asperger Syndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorders in Infants and Toddlers published by Guilford Press, the third edition of the Handbook of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders published by Wiley, and several special issues of professional journals focused on autism spectrum disorders.

Warren Jones, Ph.D. is the Director of Research at the Marcus Autism Center and is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Emory University School of Medicine. He received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Yale University. His research is focused on the use of eye-tracking technologies to characterize and quantify the social phenotype in autism, Asperger's Syndrome, and related conditions. The aim of Dr. Jones’s research is to better understand the perspectives and struggles of individuals with social disabilities, to quantify phenotypic variation in the manifestation of such disabilities, to improve efforts at early diagnosis, and to develop future strategies for intervention.

Gordon Ramsay, Ph.D. is the Director of the Spoken Communication Laboratory at the Marcus Autism Center and is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Emory University School of Medicine. Gordon graduated from Cambridge University in England with a B.A./M.A. in Electrical and Information Sciences and an M.Phil. in Computer Speech and Language Processing, and went on to complete a Ph.D. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Southampton. He has also studied and worked at the École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications in Paris, France, the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, the Institut de la Communication Parlée in Grenoble, France, and the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Brussels, Belgium, and has ongoing collaborations with the Department of Linguistics at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and MARCS Auditory Laboratories at the University of Western Sydney in Australia. Trained as a speech scientist and electronic engineer, his research has centered on understanding the biological foundations of spoken language by building computationally-explicit models of speech production and speech perception, and applying these to speech synthesis and recognition. In collaboration with Ami Klin, Warren Jones, and David Lin, he has recently begun developing new statistical tools and novel experimental paradigms for investigating the development of audiovisual perception in infants with autism. In his spare time, he is writing a prehistory of mechanical speaking machines.

Cheryl Klaiman, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine and Director for the Assessment and Diagnosis Program at Marcus Autism Center, leading a team of 15 clinicians to conduct diagnostic evaluations for clinical and research patients. She is also clinical director of a multisite, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-regulated clinical trial working to translate research endeavors at Marcus into a tool for diagnosing autism. Dr. Klaiman is also Assessment Core Director for the center’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center of Excellence grants. 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. She earned her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from McGill University in 2003 and then completed her pre- and post-doctoral internship at the Yale Child Study Center.

Sarah Shultz, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Emory University School of Medicine. She received her doctorate in Cognitive Psychology from Yale University, where she used both behavioral (eye-tracking) and neuroimaging methods and analysis techniques (fMRI, EEG, dynamic causal modeling) to investigate social cognition and perception gordon from infancy to adulthood in both typically-developing populations and populations with ASD. At the Marcus Autism Center, Dr. Shultz investigates the causes and biological mechanisms of ASD. Using behavioral and neuroimaging techniques, she studies the interaction between developmental changes in the brain and the developmental unfolding of social behavior in infants with and without ASD. She also uses simultaneous eye-tracking and fMRI to study how the brain functions when children actively explore dynamic, naturalistic social scenes.

Lindee Morgan, Ph.D., CCC-SLP is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine and co-directs the Education Sciences Research Core and the Preschool Program at the Marcus Autism Center. She received her doctorate at Florida State University where she also served as the director of the Center for Autism and Related Disabilities. Dr. Morgan is also a developer of the Autism Navigator, an invaluable web-based resource designed to bridge the gap between the science community and community practice. At the Marcus Autism Center, Dr. Morgan’s primary focus is on classroom-based intervention for children with ASD. Her research focuses on investigating treatments to improve classroom engagement and social communication outcomes for individuals with ASD. In addition to her roles at Marcus, Dr. Morgan serves as a cabinet member of Get Georgia Reading and on the executive board of the Atlanta Autism Consortium.

Michael Siller, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine and co-directs the Education Sciences Research Core and the Preschool Program at the Marcus Autism Center. He received his doctorate in developmental psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles where he studied parent-child interaction, and longitudinally evaluated the development of spoken language in individuals with ASD from preschool to early adulthood. Prior to coming to Marcus, Dr. Siller held a position as Associate Professor of Psychology at Hunter College of The City University of New York, where he studied the social, emotional, and communicative development of individuals with ASD, and completed two clinical trials evaluating the efficacy of parent coaching interventions for young children with ASD. At the Marcus Autism Center, Dr. Siller works towards developing, evaluating, and implementing community-viable educational innovations for individuals with ASD across the lifespan.

Laura A. Edwards, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor at the Marcus Autism Center. Her research aims to leverage social neuroscience methods and insights to improve the educational outcomes of children with autism and related communication disorders. Her current projects focus on identifying optimal timing and targets for early intervention, the development of community-viable biomarkers for predicting and monitoring risk of school difficulties, language/communication and literacy development, optimizing inclusive classrooms, and the role of arts education in social development. She received her doctorate in Human Development and Education from Harvard University.

Katherine Pickard, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Michigan State University and completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at JFK Partners at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Her primary research interest is in the translation of evidence-based practices into community systems that are naturally positioned to serve children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental delays. This interest is rooted in a longstanding commitment to better understanding and addressing treatment disparities. Dr. Pickard’s research is grounded in community-engaged research models and guided by dissemination and implementation science. At Marcus Autism Center, Dr. Pickard leads and collaborates on research examining mechanisms that foster the adoption, implementation and sustainment of evidence-based practices within a variety of community systems, including early intervention and public school systems. She is particularly interested in the role of families and community stakeholders in shaping interventions as they are implemented within the community, and in other factors that impact the reach and sustainability of translation efforts.

Current Fellows

Past Fellows

Graduate Students

Zeena Ammar graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering. During her time there, she took part in the Co-op program working in the Research and Development department at Bard Medical. Her undergraduate research involved building a quantitative database for a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease and extracting data on the relationship between amyloid-beta levels and cognitive task performance. During her final year at Georgia Tech she worked with the Grady Trauma Project and helped in collecting psychophysiological data to measure fear response in pregnant women across their pregnancy. Zeena is now a graduate student in the neuroscience program at Emory University working with Dr. Sarah Shultz at the Marcus Autism Center.

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. Her undergraduate thesis examined the behavioral and neurostructural phenotype of the TS2-neo mouse model of Timothy Syndrome mediated-autism spectrum disorder. Post-graduation, Aiden accepted the Donald J. Cohen Fellowship in Developmental Social Neuroscience and moved to Atlanta to study patterns of social visual engagement from infancy to toddlerhood with Drs. Ami Klin, Warren Jones, and Sarah Shultz. She continues this line of research now as a graduate student with Dr. Sarah Shultz in the neuroscience program at Emory University and specifically investigates the mechanisms by which dyadic social experience contributes to infant neurobehavioral development.

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. Adriana began as a Donald J. Cohen Fellow at Emory in 2018. 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

Elizabeth (Elly) Kushner graduated in 2019 from the University of Pittsburgh with a B.Phil in Developmental Psychology where she conducted research on the development of communication within the context of parent-child interaction among children with ASD. She then completed a pre-doctoral fellowship at the Marcus Autism Center working in the Education Sciences Research Core and the Social Neuroscience core, primarily studying the interplay between social visual engagement and language development in children with ASD. She continues to work at the Marcus Autism Center while completing a doctorate in Clinical Psychology at Emory University studying parent-mediated early interventions for ASD with a particular interest in social-communicative and emotional development and intervention.

Staff

Jose Luis Paredes is an Applications Developer and Analyst. He received his Master in Computer Science specializing in Network Systems at the University of New Haven. He received a B.S. in Physics and a B.S. in Mathematics at the University of Houston. Jose works in the development of in-house software solutions including a video behavior coding application, an automated application for coding of regions of interest in videos and a visual stimuli presentation application incorporating an eye tracking data collection system. In addition he provides configuration, deployment and technical support of Mac OS X desktop and laptop computers and a Mac OS X server used at the Social Neuroscience and Neuroimaging Research Cores. He also provides training for lab users in computer programming fundamentals.

Sasha Greenspan is a Research Project Coordinator at Marcus Autism Center. Sasha received a Master of Science degree from the University of Maine and a doctoral degree from James Cook University specializing in infectious disease ecology. With a career focus on project management and research administration, Sasha helps to manage research activities for the Marcus Autism Center Pediatric Neuroimaging Core.

Research Assistants

Emma Chatson graduated with highest honors from Emory University in May 2022 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in French studies. She began her journey at the Marcus Autism Center in June 2021 by serving as a volunteer assistant preschool teacher in the Brett and Louise Samskey Preschool. She was inspired by the impact of inclusive early education and was eager to learn more about early intervention for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and education sciences. In August 2021, Emma joined the Education Sciences Research Core at Marcus as a student research intern where she completed her senior honors thesis under the guidance of Dr. Michael Siller and Dr. Aubrey Kelly. Her thesis investigated the eﬀectiveness of naturalistic interventions in inclusive preschool classrooms by evaluating the associations between active student engagement and teacher facilitation. Emma also collaborated on the SEE-KS ﬁdelity coding project by aiding the development of a video coding scheme to evaluate classroom structure in elementary schools.

After graduating from Emory, Emma began her current position as a research assistant at Marcus. She is a member of the Autism Center of Excellence (ACE) Education follow-up study team, which recruits participants previously enrolled in ACE studies to evaluate their social, cognitive, and educational development. As a research assistant, Emma recruits families to participate in the follow-up study, conducts research visits, and collects data through the means of administering educational assessments and eye-tracking procedures to evaluate social-visual engagement in children with and without autism. In the future, Emma hopes to pursue a graduate degree in clinical psychology or school psychology.

Harshini Murthy, originally from Bangalore, India, graduated from Emory University in 2021 with a B.S. in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology and a B.A. in Psychology. During her time at Emory, Harshini completed her honor’s thesis under the guidance of Dr. Aubrey Kelly and Dr. Michael Siller. Her thesis investigated the impact of COVID-19 and distance learning on pre-school children’s active engagement in classrooms. Harshini also was an undergraduate research assistant at Dr. Scott Lilienfeld’s lab, where she aided in researching intellectual humility and biases. She spent her free time at Emory travelling with her acapella group to competitions across the US, and performing on campus and at Atlanta events.

As a research assistant at Marcus, Harshini is part of the neuroimaging team and assists in eye-tracking data collection for infants at high and low risk for ASD. Currently, she helps in collecting control data to study differences between groups with and without 3q29 deletions and duplications. Harshini also serves as a research assistant for the ACE Educational Follow Up study, which follows students previously enrolled in the ACE studies and tracks their academic performance and development. In the future, Harshini hopes to pursue a graduate degree in Neuropsychology.

Brooke Demetri was an honors student at the State University of New York at Geneseo, where she graduated summa cum laude in May 2021 with a B.S. in Neuroscience. During her time at Geneseo, Brooke worked with Dr. Jason Ozubko in collaboration with the University of Rochester to investigate the neuropsychological basis of spatial memory development over time in humans using functional MRI. Additionally, Brooke conducted her honors thesis with Dr. Varuni Jamburuthugoda, where she used various molecular and microbiology techniques to analyze the role of RNA binding in the integration mechanism of R2 retrotransposable elements to better understand disease-causing retrotransposition of similar elements present in humans. Along with her research experiences, Brooke was a volunteer EMT-B on the Geneseo First Response Team, a Supplemental Instructor for organic chemistry and general biology, as well as a Teaching Assistant for behavioral research methods and cognitive psychology.

As a research assistant at Marcus, Brooke is a member of the neuroimaging team and assists on eye-tracking and MRI studies involving infants who are at high and low risk for ASD. Currently, Brooke is working on a project investigating transitions in cortical and subcortical visual pathways in infants throughout their first six months of life. Brooke is also involved in collecting neuroimaging data on individuals with 3q29 microdeletion syndrome. After her time at Marcus, Brooke plans to apply to medical school and pursue a career as a physician specializing in Neonatology or Developmental and
Behavioral Pediatrics.

Malerie McDowell graduated from Rhodes College in Memphis, TN in 2017 with a B.S. in Neuroscience and a B.A. in Studio Art. In her primary undergraduate research, Malerie studied visual perception under Dr. Jason Haberman, and led two projects in aesthetic preferences toward motion and mirror reflection. After graduating, Malerie became a research analyst at Vanderbilt University under Dr. Frank Tong where she continued her studies in vision science using both behavioral and neuroimaging methods and led a project studying how radiologists search for abnormalities in x-rays. While at Vanderbilt, she pursued an interest in clinical psychology and later spent 10 months as a Registered Behavioral Technician at Dogwood Autism Services, where she scaffolded early communication and social skills with toddlers with ASD.

As a research assistant at Marcus, Malerie assists in eye-tracking and neuroimaging data collection for infants at high risk and low risk for ASD. Currently, she is investigating visual correlates of perceived salience as infants with and without ASD engage with their caregivers. Following her work at Marcus, Malerie plans to pursue a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology.