Fellows & Students

Laura Anderson is currently a Child Neuroscience research fellow. In 2011, she received a B.A. in psychology, magna cum laude, from Duke University, where she completed an honors thesis on language perception in 18-month-old infants. Laura has long been interested in studying autism, especially from a developmental perspective, and she is excited for the opportunity to do so with such a great group of researchers. Currently, she is involved in a project investigating biological motion perception in infants with low and high risk for autism using fNIRS and an fMRI study investigating affective touch in adults with and without autism.

Daniel Campbell, Ph.D., is a Post-doctoral fellow at the Yale Child Study Center. He received his doctoral degree in Statistics from Yale University, where he developed new statistical techniques for the analysis of eye-tracking data to help diagnose autism spectrum disorders. Current research projects include the use of eye-tracking analysis to aid in early detection of autism, performance and reliability assessments of new diagnostic screening tests, and longitudinal analysis of the impact that an enlarged head and/or brain can have on the development and outcome of autism.

Marika Coffman is the Sara S. Sparrow Fellow in Clinical Neuroscience under the mentorship of Dr. James McPartland. Marika graduatedwith honors from Vanderbilt University with a B.S. in Child Studies and Psychology and concentrations in English and Neuroscience. As an undergraduate at Vanderbilt University, she employed ERP and EMG to study emotional psychophysiological responses in dynamic social interactions between individuals high and low in measures of psychopathy. Marika is now studyingface processing in adolescents with autism, with a special emphasis on sex differences, as well as biological motion perception in infants and toddlers at high- and low-risk for ASD. Marika hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.

Eugenia Gisin is a research fellow at the Yale Study Center. She graduated this past spring from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Bachelors of Science in Brain and Cognitive Sciences. While at MIT, she worked in Dr. Mark Bear’s lab researching various pharmacological interventions in Fragile X syndrome. She also worked at the MIT AgeLab, helping test various gadgets, such as a conversational GPS, with the elderly population which could help them live more independent lives. Ultimately she hopes to pursue a career in medicine.

Judah Koller, Psy.D., is a Post-doctoral Associate at the Yale Child Study Center. He earned his doctoral degree, with a specialization in Infancy and Early Childhood, from the combined Clinical Child/School Psychology program at Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University. Dr. Koller spent much of his training working with children and families in low SES neighborhoods in the Bronx and East Harlem, where he was trained in the DIR®/Floortime™ approach by Dr. Gilbert Foley. He is currently interested in the relationship between temperament and the early expression of autism spectrum disorders in toddlers.

Cora Mukerji graduated magna cum laude from Yale University, where she received a B.A. with distinction in the Neuroscience track in Psychology. As an undergraduate, she developed and conducted a thesis study investigating neural correlates of empathy for physical and social pain under the mentorship of Dr. James McPartland, for which she was awarded the Robert G. Crowder Undergraduate Research Prize. She is currently a research assistant and is using EEG to study neural mechanisms of empathic processing, the development of social perception in high-risk infants, and changes in brain response associated with social skills intervention in children with ASD. Cora hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in clinical psychology

Rachael Tillman is a Sara S. Sparrow Fellow in Clinical Neuroscience under the mentorship of Dr. James McPartland. Rachael graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a B.A. in Psychology and minor in Writing Seminars. As an undergraduate, she worked in the Laboratory for Neurocognitive and Imaging Research at Kennedy Krieger Institute focusing on brain-behavior relationships in pediatric anxiety disorders. Currently, she is studying the neural differences between intersensory processing in high-risk and low-risk infants and brain response changes pre- and post- social skills intervention in children with ASD. Rachael hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.