Rola Adebogun graduated with high honors from Princeton University in May 2022 with an A.B. degree in Psychology and a minor in Neuroscience. While at Princeton, Rola worked under Dr. Nicole Shelton and Dr. Stacey Sinclair as a research assistant in the Stigma and Social Perception (SSP) Lab. In the SSP Lab, she supported the development and deployment of several studies, many of which investigated how interpersonal interactions translate culturally held biases into individual thoughts and actions. Under the guidance of Dr. Sinclair Rola completed her Junior Paper and Senior Thesis, both of which examined the mechanisms through which implicit racial bias distorts pain perception and leads to broader disparities in infant and maternal health treatment and outcomes. Driven by her passion for health equity, Rola also served as a research intern at the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute, where she contributed to the creation of an actionable blueprint for the Nurture NJ Strategic Plan, a multi-pronged, multi-agency initiative targeted at achieving systematic and sustainable improvements to infant and maternal health in New Jersey.
As a joint Clinical Research and Cohen Fellow, Rola learned and administered various assessments used for clinical and diagnostic characterization of autism and uses eye-tracking technology to examine social visual engagement in typically developing children and those with autism. Currently, she is investigating whether characteristics of older siblings with autism are predictive of dimensional outcomes in younger siblings, while integrating eye-tracking data as an index for social visual engagement. Following her time at Marcus, Rola plans to pursue a doctoral degree in either Clinical Psychology or Neuropsychology.
Dori Balser graduated with high honors from Washington University in St. Louis in May 2022 with a B.A. in Psychological and Brain Sciences and a minor in Computer Science. At WashU, Dori was a research assistant in the Laboratory for Child Brain Development (LCBD) where she co-developed EmoCodes, a video coding system for characterizing complex movie stimuli in order to investigate socio-emotional processing in children. Dori continued this line of research in the Cognitive Control and Psychopathology Lab, where, with guidance from Dr. Deanna Barch, Dori conducted her honors thesis investigating neural correlates of emotion processing in pediatric anxiety, using fMRI to examine functional network activation to complex, negative stimuli coded with EmoCodes. This work, along with her summer experiences as a preschool camp counselor and NAMI HelpLine Specialist, shaped Dori’s interest in the intersection of research and clinical practice in child psychology.
As a joint Provence and Cohen Fellow, Dori administers developmental assessments, aids in clinical evaluation, and uses eye-tracking technology to examine social-visual engagement in typically developing children and children with autism. She is also involved with the CBT clinic, where she co-facilitates an anxiety treatment program for school-aged children with autism. Dori is interested in researching treatment effectiveness and outcomes for children with autism and anxiety. Dori is currently pursuing a PhD in Clinical Psychology at Florida International University.
Emma McQueen graduated with highest honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2020 with a B.S. in Psychology and minors in Chemistry and Neuroscience. As a recipient of the Autism Science Foundation Undergraduate Research Grant and David Bray Peele Award, she completed her senior thesis assessing executive functioning profiles in 7-12-year-old children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder using electroencephalography, the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery and parent report. She also worked as a research assistant in the Early Development in Neurodevelopmental Disorders Lab evaluating restricted and repetitive behaviors in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. As a volunteer at the UNC TEACCH for Toddlers Early Intervention Program, Emma worked to incorporate naturalistic, structured, and behavioral intervention strategies with parent coaching.
As a Clinical Research Fellow, Emma was involved in projects linking social-visual engagement measures to interdisciplinary clinical assessment and evaluation. She was interested in investigating the predictive power of eye-tracking data compared to diagnostic measures of ASD across vulnerable populations. Emma is currently pursuing an MD/MPH at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University.
Mackenzie Hines-Wilson was a joint Clinical Research Fellow and Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience from 2021-2023. She graduated with college honors from Washington University in St. Louis in 2021 with a B.A. in Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology with a concentration in Cognitive Neuroscience and a minor in Anthropology. As a joint Clinical Research Fellow and Cohen Fellow, Mackenzie was interested in projects that are targeted at using eye-tracking measures of social visual engagement and clinical evaluations to increase early-detection of ASD in marginalized populations. She investigated the relationship between co-occurring psychiatric disorders and ASD by using diagnostic tools and eye-tracking technology. Mackenzie is now a Clinical Research Coordinator at Marcus.