People

James McPartland is Assistant Professor, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Director of the Developmental Disabilities Clinic, and Associate Director of the Developmental Electrophysiology Laboratory at the Yale Child Study Center. He graduated magna cum laude in Psychology from Harvard University and received his doctoral degree in Child Clinical Psychology from the University of Washington. He completed pre- and post-doctoral clinical fellowships specializing in autism and related disorders at the Child Study Center and is a licensed child psychologist. His contributions to the field have been recognized by the University of Washington’s Bolles and Gatzert Child Welfare Fellowships, a Clinical and Translational Sciences Scholar Award from the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation, a Behavioral Science Track Award for Rapid Transition and a Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Mental Health, the NARSAD Atherton Young Investigator Award, and the International Society for Autism Research Young Investigator Award.

Download Dr. McPartland’s curriculum vitae.

Adam Naples is a postdoctoral fellow. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 2009. Adam’s work focuses on the early time course of brain and behavioral activity during social interaction. Currently, Adam is conducting research involving brain response to gaze contingent interactive computer generated expressive faces. This work will assist in elucidating the social communicative phenotype in autism spectrum disorders.

Giulia Righi received her Ph.D. in Cognitive Sciences from Brown University in the summer of 2009 working with Drs. Sheila Blumstein and Michael Tarr. In graduate school, she used a cognitive neuroscience perspective to study face processing and executive function in adults. Successively, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Children's Hospital Boston under the supervision of Dr. Charles Nelson. As a post-doc, she worked with typically developing infants and infants at risk for autism with the goal of understanding the development of face and language processing during the first year of life. In the summer of 2011, she began a Clinical Psychology Respecialization program to integrate her research background with clinical work. At present she is a clinical trainee. Her clinical and research interests are focused on developmental disabilities.

Marika Coffman is a Sara S. Sparrow Fellow in Clinical Neuroscience. Marika graduated with 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 studying face 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.

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. 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.

Peter Hashim is a 4th year student in the School of Medicine. He is currently pursuing an MD/MHS degree and studying the effects of abnormal head shape conditions, such as craniosynostosis and plagiocephaly, on language development.

Aishani Desai is a Masters student in Developmental Neuroscience and Psychopathology at University College London and Yale University. She graduated with a BSc (Hons) in psychology from the University of Warwick, England. Her undergraduate thesis aimed to investigate the different components of temporal selective attention in dyslexia. After her undergraduate degree she worked on a neurodevelopmental sub study looking at the behavioral profile of HIV infected children in Cape Town, South Africa. Currently she is working on my research project for her Master’s thesis, in the Developmental Electrophysiology Lab under the mentorship of Dr. James McPartland.

Max Rolison is an undergraduate student at Yale University. He is working towards a degree in the Neuroscience track in Psychology. He has worked for the Autism Science Foundation since its founding in 2009. Max is the president of the undergraduate organization Yale for Autism Awareness.

Celine Cuevas is an undergraduate student at Yale University, working towards a degree in biomedical engineering. She received a research stipend to work in the McPartland lab this past summer through the freshman course Perspectives in Science & Engineering, and is continuing her project on EEG gamma coherence in face processing. Outside of the lab, Celine is a Production & Design editor for the Yale Daily News, social chair of the LGBTQ Co-Op and a peer counselor for the Queer Resource Center.

Deanna Palenzuela is an undergraduate student at Yale University working towards a degree in the Neuroscience track in Psychology. She is currently involved in directed research in the McPartland Lab. Outside of the lab, Deanna is a Peer Liaison for La Casa Cultural Center, Secretary of the Cuban American Undergraduate Student Association, and a member of the Yale College Council Mental Health Committee.