Free webinar at 1 p.m. Eastern time (US), Wednesday, November 20, 2024

About the speaker:

Dr. Bradley Ferguson, PhD is an Assistant Research Professor, MU School of Medicine. He is currently studying the association between immune, endocrine, and psychophysiological markers of stress and gastrointestinal disorders in those with autism spectrum disorder. He is also leading the psychophysiological biomarker assessment for predictors of response to medications, and also the relationship to aberrant behaviors.

Free webinar at 1 p.m. Eastern time (US), Wednesday, November 13, 2024

About the speaker:

Kelly Barnhill, MBA, CN, CCN, is the Director of the Nutrition Clinic at The Johnson Center for Child Health and Development. She is a Certified Clinical Nutritionist, with over a decade of experience working with nutrition in children with autism and related disorders. At the Johnson Center, she directs a team of dieticians and nutritionists that has served over 3000 children through this practice. Ms. Barnhill also serves as Co-Vice Chair of ARI’s Board of Directors and sits on ARI’s Scientific Advisory Board.

Free webinar at 1 p.m. Eastern time (US), Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Learn about emerging research on improvements in clinical understanding that can be gained by applying findings from the neurosciences field.

The speaker:

James McPartland, Ph.D., is the Harris Professor of Child Psychiatry and Psychology at the Yale Child Study Center. He is a neuroscientist and practicing child psychologist who directs the Yale Developmental Disabilities Clinic. Dr. McPartland is also a founder and director of the Yale Center for Brain and Mind Health and the Principal Investigator of the Autism Biomarkers Consortium for Clinical Trials, a US-based effort to identify biological indices to enhance intervention research in autism. Dr. McPartland’s program of research investigates the brain bases of neurodevelopmental conditions to develop biologically-based tools to improve clinical care and quality of life for autistic people and their families.

Free webinar at 1 p.m. Eastern time (US), Wednesday, September 25, 2024

About the speaker:

Patricia Wright, PhD, MPH, is Executive Director of Proof Positive: Autism Wellbeing Alliance. She holds a Ph.D. and Master of Public Health from the University of Hawaii. Her research focuses on the delivery of evidence-based interventions in community-based settings and healthcare access for people with disabilities. Patricia worked on the design and transformation of a statewide system of support for children with autism for the state of Hawaii, and she also served in leadership roles for NEXT for AUTISM and as the National Director of Autism Services for Easterseals. Additionally, Patricia has held advisory roles for a number of professional associations and advocacy groups, including the Organization for Autism Research’s Scientific Council, the Executive Committee for the Friends of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Board of Directors for the Association of Professional Behavior Analysts and the Autism Society Panel of Professional Advisors. Patricia has advised and provided expert testimony at Congressional Hearings. She is also a frequent contributor in the media, raising awareness of early identification and developmental milestones and deepening the public’s understanding of disability equity, inclusion and access.

Free webinar at 5 p.m. Eastern time (US), Wednesday August 28, 2024

Learn research updates on evidence-based strategies to support adolescents and young adults develop social skills that encourage lasting friendships.

The speaker:

Dr. Elizabeth A. Laugeson is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and is a licensed clinical psychologist.  Dr. Laugeson is the Founder and Director of the UCLA PEERS Clinic, which is an outpatient hospital-based program providing parent-assisted social skills training for individuals from preschool to adulthood. Dr. Laugeson is also the Director for the UCLA Tarjan Center, which is a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, and Program Director for the Predoctoral Psychology Internship Program in Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities at UCLA. Dr. Laugeson has trained tens of thousands of mental health professionals, educators, and families worldwide, and is dedicated to developing and testing evidence-based treatments to improve social skills across the lifespan and across the globe. As one of the only empirically supported and internationally recognized social skills programs for neurodivergent youth, her program is currently used in over 150 countries and has been translated into over a dozen languages.

Free webinar at 1 p.m. Eastern time (US), Wednesday, June 12, 2024 (updated date)

Tune in to learn research updates on blood-brain barrier dysfunction in Pediatric Acute Neuropsychiatric Syndrome (PANS) and Regulation.

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The speakers:

Noor A. Hussein, PhD is a pharmacology scientist.
“My experience as a researcher has taught me to seek out new perspectives for exploration and discovery. As a dedicated biological and pharmacological researcher with over 7 years of experience with models of diseases such as cancer both in vitro and in vivo. During my masters and Ph.D. studies, I mastered lots of molecular biology techniques, including cell culture, cytotoxicity assays, western blot, quantitative PCR, immunofluorescence, flow cytometry. I utilized my skills to design experiments finding solutions to common problems in the biomedical field, especially cancer experimental and molecular therapeutics.”

Ayan Mondal, Ph.D. is a third-year post-doctoral research fellow in Prof Elizabeth Mellins’ laboratory at Dept of pediatrics, Stanford University. “I completed my graduation from University of Calcutta, India, in 2017. I have conducted 1.5 years of research on molecular medicine following graduation and joined as a post-doctoral researcher at the Arnold School of Public health, University of South Carolina, in the year 2019. During the training, I studied neuroimmune signaling mechanisms in the gut-liver-brain axes in mouse models of metabolic disorders and military-deployment-associated disorders. My studies elucidated the mechanism of neuroinflammation and blood-brain barrier (BBB) dysfunction mediated by specific proteins that are elevated in blood during these disease conditions. In my post-doctoral research with Prof Mellins, I am studying changes in BBB function in PANS. I am focusing on elucidating the mechanisms of action of novel modulators of BBB that are relevant to homeostatic maintenance of the BBB and other novel modulators that increase BBB permeability during flares of PANS. My proposed experimental strategies include transcriptomic and proteomic approaches in cell types of the CNS neurovascular unit.”

1 p.m. Eastern time (US), Wednesday, June 5, 2024

Dr. Connor Kerns discusses emerging findings on the relationship between trauma and autism.

The speaker:

Dr. Connor Kerns has conducted and published studies on broad array of topics including the role of paternal age in ASD risk, the co-occurrence of childhood psychopathologies, and differential predictors of CBT efficacy for child anxiety. Her present research focuses on the overlap, assessment and treatment of anxiety and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Her ongoing projects aim to explore the varied presentation and phenomenology of anxiety in ASD and the implications of this variation for effective anxiety measurement and treatment. Dr. Kerns is also preparing to extend this work to the understudied area of traumatic events and their sequelae in youth with ASD. Another area of interest is the use of technology to facilitate the dissemination of empirically based treatments. Dr. Kerns is currently working to develop cost-effective, computer-assisted CBTs for youth with ASD and anxiety, interactive social stories to improve skill generalization in ASD, and video-enhanced ASD screening and educational tools. Her long terms goals include developing a parsimonious model of psychiatric co-occurrence to inform the design and dissemination of cross-diagnostic assessments and treatments that will improve child wellbeing and development.

Free webinar at 1 p.m. Eastern time (US), Wednesday, May 15, 2024

Tune in to this presentation by Dr. Einat Waizbard-Bartov to learn about how autism symptoms change throughout child development.

The speaker:

Dr. Einat Waizbard-Bartov is a post-doctoral researcher working with Dr. Ilan Dinstein at the Azrieli National Centre for Autism and Neurodevelopment Research at Ben-Gurion University, Israel. Dr. Waizbard-Bartov completed her doctoral studies at the University of California, Davis, working with Dr. David Amaral at the UC Davis MIND Institute’s Autism Phenome Project. She is also a licensed clinical psychologist trained in autism assessment and play-based and cognitive-behavioral therapies with children. Dr. Waizbard-Bartov is especially interested in assessment and measurement of autism symptoms, developmental trajectories across the life span and how these translate into individual needs, and the female autism phenotype.