Brooke Schirmer was an Educational Sciences Research Core Fellow from 2021-2023. She graduated from the University of Rochester in 2020 with a B.S. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences, a B.A. in Psychology with honors in research and a minor in American Sign Language. As an Education Science Research Fellow, Brooke explored observational data from our inclusion preschool at Marcus, as well as eye tracking data. She was interested in learning more about the factors that influence a child’s success in the classroom, both children with and without autism. Brooke now is getting her masters in School Psychology at Georgia State.
Elly Kushner was an Education Sciences Fellow from 2019–2021. 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.
Asha Rudrabhatla graduated with distinction from Colorado College in 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Spanish. Through her work with various grassroots organizations, Asha has channeled her passion for social justice into immigrant rights advocacy and mental health advocacy efforts. As an undergraduate intern at the Global Mental Health Program at Columbia University, she helped advocate for accessibility to local and global mental health services through participation in collaborative research efforts. She has also interned at the Berkeley Early Learning Lab at UC Berkeley, where she worked on a study examining the emergence and development of stereotyping behavior. Interested in identifying areas of focus for socioculturally sensitive interventions, Asha has also examined possible mechanisms of depression and psychological distress in Asian Americans as part of her undergraduate thesis research.
As an Education Sciences Research Fellow, Asha was interested in using research as a tool for positive social change through promoting access to inclusive and equitable interventions for individuals with ASD in educational settings, in particular for underserved communities. She led a research project investigating barriers to engagement and parent outcomes related to sociocultural adaptation of evidence-based parent-mediated interventions, and a state-wide survey-based study geared towards identifying factors optimizing buy-in for inclusive Pre-K programs. Asha is currently a Project Coordinator in the DREAM Lab at the University of Southern California, and she plans to pursue a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology.