A neurodevelopment research initiative

Susanne Ahmari

MD, PhD

Susanne Ahmari, M.D., PhD is a practicing psychiatrist and neuroscientist with expertise in translating findings between humans and model systems. She is a trailblazer in the use of advanced technology to precisely manipulate and monitor circuits to uncover the neural substrates of obsessive compulsive disorder. Dr. Ahmari earned her MD and PhD in Molecular and Cellular Physiology from Stanford University and completed her residency in Psychiatry at Columbia University. She then established the Translational OCD Laboratory at University of Pittsburgh in 2013 to conduct interdisciplinary research that will ultimately lead to better treatments for patients.

In addition to being an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at University of Pittsburgh and Director of the Translational OCD Laboratory, Dr. Ahmari is also currently a Program Director at Wellcome Leap, where she developed and is directing Multi-Channel Psych, a $50 million program to develop new treatments for anhedonic depression. She has obtained research support from NIMH, NINDS, and foundation grants including a Burroughs Wellcome Career Award, One Mind Rising Star Award, IOCDF Breakthrough Award, and Foundation for OCD Research Consortium Award. She has also received a number of awards in recognition of her translational neuroscience efforts, including the McKnight Scholar Award, the NIMH BRAINS Award, the A.E. Bennett Research Award, the MQ Fellows Award, and the ACNP Eva King Killam Research Award. In addition to ARIA, she sits on the scientific advisory board of several research foundations, including the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (NARSAD), ORCHARD, and the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF).

Erika Augustine

MD, MS

Erika Fullwood Augustine, M.D., is Associate Chief Science Officer at the Kennedy Krieger Institute, and Associate Professor of Neurology at Johns Hopkins Medicine. She is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Rochester School of Medicine (‘O3MD, ‘14MS). Dr. Augustine completed child neurology residency training in the Boston Children’s Hospital program. Her clinical research program focuses on advancing therapeutic development for rare pediatric neurological disorders, with emphasis on comprehensive clinical phenotyping and trial design. Her current NIH-funded work examines trial readiness of clinical outcome measures in the neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses (NCLs, Batten diseases). Previously, she co-developed a clinical tool to measure disease severity in the neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses that is now used in multiple clinical trials. She has published extensively on the research topics related to drug development in rare disease, natural history of the NCLs, and clinical trials in Parkinson disease.  She has received research funding from the NIH, FDA, and several foundations.

Dr. Augustine has a longstanding commitment to education and mentoring in clinical research. In 2017, she launched the Minority Research Scholars Program, a collaborative initiative between the Child Neurologist Career Development Program and the Child Neurology Society dedicated to fostering diversity in the next generation of clinician-scientists. In 2023, Dr. Augustine received the Sidney Carter Award from the American Academy of Neurology. She is a member of the Board of Directors for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and for the American Brain Coalition.

Raquel Gur

MD, PhD

Dr. Raquel Gur is the Karl and Linda Rickels Professor of Psychiatry and leads the Neurodevelopment & Psychosis Section. She is Senior Vice Chair for Research and Penn-CHOP Research Integration, Co-Director of the Penn Translational Neuroscience Center and, Director of the Lifespan Brain Institute at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She holds secondary professorial appointments in the Departments of Neurology and Radiology.

Her combined training in Psychology, Neurology and Psychiatry has provided the tools to pursue an academic career working with basic and clinical neuroscientists to advance the understanding of psychosis and neurodevelopmental disorders. In directing these research endeavors, she has interacted with scientists of diverse backgrounds, conducted collaborative interdisciplinary research, mentored junior faculty and trainees, and has come to know many patients and their families.

She is a member and has served in multiple organizations including the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the NIMH Council and the American Psychiatric Association task forces including the DSM-5 Psychosis work group. She is Past President of both the Society of Biological Psychiatry and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. NIMH has supported her research efforts and she has over 700 publications in peer-reviewed journals.

John Krystal

MD

Dr. John Krystal is the Director of the Center for the Translational Neuroscience of Alcohol based at Yale University Department of Psychiatry. He is a leading expert in alcoholism, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, and depression. His work links psychopharmacology, neuroimaging, molecular genetics, and computational neuroscience to study neurobiology and treatment of these disorders. He is best known for leading the discovery of the rapid antidepressant effects of ketamine in depressed patients. Currently, he is Co-Chair of the Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders (NeuroForum) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and he edits the journal Biological Psychiatry.

Dr. Krystal is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine and also serves in a variety of advisory and review capacities for organizations like NIAAA, NIMH, Wellcome Trust, the Broad Institute, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Dr. Krystal previously served on the National Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Advisory Council (NIAAA), the Department of Defense Psychological Health Advisory Committee, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Advisory Council, and the NIMH Board of Scientific Counselors. He has led the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and International College of Neuropsychopharmacology as president.

Brian Litt

MD

Dr. Brian Litt is Professor of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania and Director of the University of Pennsylvania Epilepsy Center. He is one of the world’s leading authorities on neuroengineering, implantable brain devices, and neurotechnology, particularly for epilepsy. He has authored over 130 peer-reviewed papers and 17 patents, and received numerous honors and awards, including Dana, Klingenstein, Whitaker, and Brain and Behavior Research Foundation Fellowships. He’s also received research innovation awards from the leading professional organizations in neurology, epilepsy and bioengineering. He serves as an advisor to the NIH’s Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies®(BRAIN) Initiative and is on the Editorial Board of Science Translational Medicine. Dr. Litt has an Engineering degree from Harvard, received his MD and training in medicine and neurology from Johns Hopkins, and has served on the faculty at Hopkins, Emory University, Georgia Tech and the University of Pennsylvania.

Dan Lowenstein

MD

Dr. Daniel H. Lowenstein is the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost and the Robert B. and Ellinor Aird Professor of Neurology in the Department of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco ( UCSF), where he has spent many years as Professor of Neurology and Director of the Epilepsy Research Laboratory in the School of Medicine. A prolific writer and scholar, he has received virtually every teaching award given by UCSF’s School of Medicine. His interests include the molecular and cellular changes in neural networks following seizure activity and injury, the genetic basis of epilepsy, and therapy for abnormally prolonged seizures known as status epilepticus. He has also served as Director of the UCSF Epilepsy Center and President of the American Epilepsy Society. He joined UCSF after serving as Dean of Medical Education at Harvard Medical School, where he earned his medical degree.

Rob Malenka

MD, PhD

Dr. Robert C. Malenka is the Pritzker Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Director of the Nancy Pritzker Laboratory, and a founder of Stanford University’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. His laboratory conducts research on the synaptic and circuit mechanisms that mediate motivated behaviors of relevance to a range of brain disorders including addiction, autism, and depression. Currently, he is on leave from Stanford to serve as the Chief Scientific Officer at Bayshore Global Management.

Dr. Malenka is an elected member of the United States’ National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine and an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American College of Neuropsychoparmagology. He has served on the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse and as a Councilor for the Society for Neuroscience and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Dr. Malenka has received numerous awards including the Pasarow Foundation Award for Extraordinary Accomplishment in Neuropsychiatry Research, the Society for Neuroscience Julius Axelrod Prize, and Peter Seeburg Integrative Neuroscience Prize. His papers have been cited more than 100,000 times and have provided foundational knowledge about the mechanisms of synaptic plasticity and modulation in the mammalian brain. He graduated from Harvard College with an MD and from Stanford University School of Medicine with a PhD in neuroscience.

John Ngai

PhD

Dr. John J. Ngai is the Director of the NIH’s Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies®(BRAIN) Initiative, where he oversees the long-term strategy and day-to-day operations of the NIH BRAIN Initiative as it strives to revolutionize our understanding of the brain in health and disease. He was a postdoctoral researcher at Caltech and the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons before starting a faculty position at the University of California at Berkeley. During more than 25 years as a Berkeley faculty member, Dr. Ngai has trained 20 undergraduate students, 24 graduate students and 15 postdoctoral fellows in addition to teaching well over 1,000 students in the classroom. His work has led to publications in the field’s most prestigious journals as well as numerous U.S. and international patents.

Dr. Ngai has received many awards including from the Sloan Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, and McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience. He has provided extensive service on NIH study sections, councils and steering groups, including as previous co-chair of the NIH BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Consortium Steering Group. Dr. Ngai earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry and biology from Pomona College, Claremont, California, and PhD in biology from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena.

Alison Singer

MBA

Alison Singer is Co-Founder and President of the Autism Science Foundation (ASF), which supports autism research by providing funding and other assistance to scientists and organizations conducting, facilitating, publicizing, and disseminating autism research. She served on the federal Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee for 12 years, where she chaired the Safety and Housing Workgroups and serve on the subcommittee responsible for an annual strategic plan to guide federal spending for autism research. Ms. Singer currently serves on the executive boards of the Yale Child Study Center, the Seaver Autism Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) and the Marcus Autism Center at Emory University, among others. She also serves on the external advisory board of the CDC’s Center for Developmental Disabilities. In 2012, the American Academy of Pediatrics named her an “autism champion.” She has received the INSAR “Outstanding Research Advocate” award as well as the New York Families for Autistic Children Research Advocacy Award.

Prior to founding the Autism Science Foundation, she served as executive vice president of Autism Speaks and as a vice president at NBC. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a bachelor’s in Economics and has an MBA from Harvard Business School. In 2020, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Emory University.

Sarah Spence

MD, PhD

Dr. Sarah Spence is a child neurologist with a PhD in cognitive neuroscience.  She has recently retired but before that was one of the founding Co-Directors of the Autism Spectrum Center at Boston Children’s Hospital.   Her clinical and research activities have been focused on children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and related disorders. She credits her ASD expertise to the experience of doing home visits for the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange (AGRE), a large autism genebank. She spent 6 years as the medical director of the UCLA Autism Evaluation Clinic and then 4 years at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) doing clinical research. At Boston Children’s she is combining her interests and expertise in clinical care, clinical research, and teaching with a primary focus on improving the lives of children with autism spectrum disorders and their families. She has lectured extensively nationally and internationally on ASD. She has also worked on the DSM-5 Neurodevelopmental Disabilities Workgroup and worked with various foundations and professional groups including Cure Autism Now, Autism Speaks, AGRE, the Autism Treatment Network, the Dup 15q Alliance, and the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance.

John Spiro

PhD

Dr. John Spiro is the Senior Vice President and Senior Scientist at the Simons Foundation, where he works with the Executive Director to oversee all aspects of the Foundation’s autism research initiative. He also helped launch the Simons Variation in Individuals Project (now Simons Searchlight) and has spearheaded the Foundation’s efforts to promote the use of preprints in the life sciences as well as other initiatives aimed at more open data sharing.

Prior to the Simons Foundation, Dr. Spiro was with the Nature Publishing Group as an editor at Nature Neuroscience, where he was involved in evaluating research findings across the field of neuroscience. He later became a senior editor on the biology team at Nature, where he oversaw a group of editors responsible for editorial decisions and peer review of manuscripts across all areas of neuroscience, ranging from molecular development to functional imaging and behavior.

Dr. Spiro earned his undergraduate degree in biology from Haverford College and his doctorate from the University of California, San Diego. He did postdoctoral work at Duke University. His research interests were in cellular and systems neuroscience, and he focused on preparations where it was possible to forge links between cellular neurobiology and behavior.

Jeremy Veenstra Vanderweele

MD

Dr. Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele is the Suzanne Crosby Murphy Professor of Developmental Neuropsychiatry at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center; Director of the Division of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at New York-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI), and Columbia University; and Co-Director of both the NIMH T32 Postdoctoral Fellowship for Translational Research in Child Psychiatric Disorders and the Whitaker Scholar Program in Developmental Neuropsychiatry at NYSPI/Columbia University Medical Center. He is a child and adolescent psychiatrist who uses molecular and translational neuroscience research tools to pursue new treatments for autism and pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Dr. Veenstra-VanderWeele’s laboratory at Columbia University and NYSPI focuses on the serotonin and glutamate systems in genetic mouse models with abnormal social or repetitive/compulsive-like behavior. His research program at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital Center for Autism and the Developing Brain (CADB) studies potential treatments for autism and related genetic syndromes. Dr. Veenstra-VanderWeele has received multiple awards, including the Blanche Ittelson Award for Research in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry from the American Psychiatric Association. He is dedicated to helping train and develop the next generation of child psychiatrists and scientists who can improve understanding of childhood neuropsychiatric disorders and deliver new treatments to the clinic.

Sophia Vinogradov

MD

Dr. Sophia Vinogradov is the Donald W. Hastings Endowed Chair in Psychiatry and Department Head of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Minnesota Medical School, where she directs a translational clinical neuroscience laboratory that focuses on cognitive dysfunction in psychosis. The lab studies neuroscience-informed cognitive training methods and seeks to understand the mechanisms that drive enduring plastic changes in cortical and subcortical processing. Her team uses MEG, EEG, and fMRI methods to probe brain changes in both early sensory processing and higher-order cognitive operations in people who undergo this kind of cognitive training. Her work has contributed to a growing interest in the use of computerized “brain training” to treat some of the brain information processing abnormalities of psychiatric illnesses. She is a recipient of the NAMI National Research Award.

She did her psychiatry residency training at Stanford University School of Medicine, where she served as Chief Resident, and completed a Psychiatric Neurosciences Research Fellowship at the Palo Alto VA Medical Center and Stanford University.