People

Katarzyna (Kasia) Chawarska, Director

Katarzyna (Kasia) Chawarska, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Child Psychiatry at the Yale Child Study Center. She received her graduate degree from the Department of Psychology at Yale University and completed her postgraduate training at the Yale Child Study Center. Her research work and publications focus on (1) understanding mechanisms that underlie social attention abnormalities observed in infants and toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorders; and (2) better defining the early phenotypic expression of ASD. Work in her lab is focused on studying face and gaze processing in children under the age of 2 years using eye-tracking technology. Determining which components of gaze and face processing are impaired and which are preserved in infants with ASD will help advance our appreciation of mechanisms underlying abnormalities in the early stages of the disorder. This evolving understanding of the condition will be consequential for designing early screening and intervention methods and improving understanding of factors responsible for high heterogeneity of early syndrome expression. Dr. Chawarska's research has been funded by both private (Autism Speaks, NAAR, Korczak Foundation) and federal (NICHD, NIMH) agencies. She is a co-editor of the book titled, "Autism in Infants and Toddlers: Diagnosis, Assessment and Treatment" published in 2008. She lectures nationally and internationally on issues related to early diagnosis of ASD. She is the Director of the Toddler Developmental Disabilities Clinic at the Yale Autism Program.

Frederick Shic, Associate Director

Frederick Shic is an Assistant Professor specializing in computational approaches to eye-tracking analysis in autism. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Yale University, and a B.S. in Engineering and Applied Sciences from the California Institute of Technology. Previously, he was a researcher at the Biomagnetics group at the Huntington Medical Research Institutes where he conducted research in 1H and 13C magnetic resonance spectroscopy; prior to that was a video game programmer for the Sony Interactive Studios of America.

Suzanne Macari, Associate Director

Suzanne Macari, Ph.D., is an Associate Research Scientist at the Yale Child Study Center. She earned her doctoral degree in Developmental Psychology from the University of Virginia and completed post-doctoral fellowships in autism research at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute with Dr. Sally Rogers and Dr. Sally Ozonoff, and at the Yale Child Study Center Toddler Developmental Disabilities Clinic under the supervision of Dr. Chawarska. Currently, she is part of the assessment team for studies involving infants and toddlers. Her research focuses on visual attention and perception in infants and toddlers with autism, early behavioral markers of autism, and developmental changes in the phenotypic expression of autism over the first three years of life.

Post-Doctoral Associates and Fellows

Daniel Campbell, Post-Doctoral Fellow

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.

Judah Koller, Post-Doctoral Associate

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.

So Hyun "Sophy" Kim, Post-Doctoral Associate

So Hyun "Sophy" Kim, Ph.D., is a Post-doctoral Associate at the Yale Child Study Center. She earned her doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Michigan under the mentorship of Dr. Catherine Lord. She also completed her clinical internship at the University of Michigan Autism and Communication Disorders Center (UMACC) and the University Center for the Child and the Family (UCCF) specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of ASD and other developmental disorders. Her past research focused on developing and refining diagnostic and language measures for young children with ASD and other communication disorders. Her current research focuses on identifying early autism phenotypes and monitoring developmental changes in infants and toddlers with ASD.

Justin Rowberry, M.D. Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics Fellow

Justin Rowberry, M.D., is a Clinical Fellow of Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics at Yale University. He received his medical degree from the Albert Einstein School of Medicine, and completed his Pediatric Residency at the San Antonio Uniformed Services Health Education Consortium. During his medical training, Dr. Rowberry conducted research on the prevalence of mental health diagnoses during wartime in military dependents and on fever determination in infants. His current research interest is the early identification of autism spectrum disorder.

Eugenia Gisin, Developmental and Computational Social Neuroscience Fellow

Eugenia Gisin is a pre-doctoral fellow at the Yale Study Center. She graduated in 2011 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.

Emily Prince, Developmental and Computational Social Neuroscience Fellow

Emily Prince recently graduated summa cum laude from Sweet Briar College with a B.S. in psychology and a minor in biology. While at Sweet Briar, she conducted research in the Animal Learning Laboratory with Dr. Dan Gottlieb, and was second author on a paper examining classical conditioning in rats. She has worked extensively with kids on the autism spectrum, with ages ranging from early childhood to adolescence. As a pre-doctoral fellow at the Child Study Center, she assists in research examining the diagnosis of infants and toddlers on the autism spectrum, and how they attend to social stimuli.

Prakriti Gupta, Post Graduate Fellow

Prakriti (Praku) Gupta was born and brought up in New Delhi, India. She has completed her B.A. (Honors) in Applied Psychology from the University of Delhi, India and has completed a certificate course in "Instructional Program for Learning Disabilities". She has experience working with children (6-18 years of age) with learning difficulties and ADHD in a school set up as a Behavioral Therapist. Currently she is pursuing her M.Sc. in Developmental Neuroscience and Psychopathology from University College London and Anna Freud Center. She is now working on her Master's Dissertation at the Yale Child Study Center supervised by Dr. So Hyun Kim as a Research Scholar under the mentorship of Dr. Katarzyna Chawarska.

Current Staff

Evelyn Pomichter, Administrative Assistant

Evelyn Pomichter is the Administrative Coordinator at the Developmental Disabilities Clinic for Infants and Toddlers. She provides a high level of administrative and clerical support with regard to all aspects of clinical and research functions. In addition, she is a central source of information to both families and members of the developmental disabilities clinical/research teams. She responds to patient concerns and requests ensuring smooth resolution. She is responsible for the management of clinical fees, including preparation of evaluation summary statements, provided to families upon request, for submission to their insurance provider for possible reimbursement. Ev has over 20 years experience working with families of children and adults with disabilities, having previously worked at the Yale Center for Children with Special Health Care Needs and the Easter Seals Rehabilitation Center.

Alexandra Dowd, Research Assistant

Alexandra Dowd was born and raised in Dallas, Texas and recently graduated cum laude from Harvard University with an A.B. in psychology. At Harvard, she conducted research on infants' cognition of helping and preferences at the Lab for Developmental Studies under the advisement of Dr. Elizabeth Spelke. She has experience working with infants, toddlers, and kids of all ages, including children with learning differences and special needs. She is currently working at the Yale Child Study Center on research with infants and toddlers to better understand the development and characteristics of autism spectrum disorders.