Co-Director: Jed Elison, PhD
Dr. Jed Elison, Co-Director of the CNS Lab, is the Irving B. Harris Professor in Child Development at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development. He completed his graduate training at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill and postdoctoral training at the California Institute of Technology. His research interests include the developmental processes and neural mechanisms that support specialized information processing, as well as the putative mechanisms that underlie atypical development. Currently, his research examines the intricate developmental processes that contribute to individual differences in social communication during the infant and toddler period. Understanding how specific patterns of brain development contribute to the emergence of complex cognitive functioning and sophisticated social behavior has the potential to directly inform how scientists approach the question of pathogenesis for various psychiatric conditions. His current goal is to use neuroimaging data (brain-based biomarkers) to predict these individual differences in behaviors that support adaptive social and cognitive functioning.
Additionally, Dr. Elison is a Co-Investigator on the Infant Brain Imaging Study (IBIS), an Autism Center of Excellence network study funded by NICHD and designed to characterize brain and behavioral development in infants at high-risk for developing autism.
Co-Director: Meghan Swanson, PHD
Dr. Meghan Swanson, Co-Director of the CNS Lab, is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Affiliate Faculty of the Institute for Child Development at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Swanson is a proud first-generation college student. She received her PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience from the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. While completing postdoctoral training in neuroimaging and neurodevelopmental disorders at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she was awarded a NIH Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00). In her research she investigates the neurobiology of early communication. She is also interested in how infants and their parents communicate and how this early communication supports brain development and later language and cognitive skills. Her research is driven by the overarching goal of providing key insights for communication interventions designed to support infants who develop autism.
director of clinical training: Casey Burrows, Phd, lp
Casey Burrows, PhD, LP, is an Assistant Professor in Pediatrics and lead clinician on IBIS studies in the CNS Lab. Casey received her PhD from the University of Miami, where she studied behavioral and neural predictors of co-occuring anxiety and depression in youth with autism spectrum disorders. She then completed her post-doctoral training in the MNLEND program at the University of MN, where she contributed to the CDC’s autism monitoring project, conducted psychological evaluations for ASD, and led treatment groups at the Autism and Neurodevelopment Clinic. When Casey is not in the lab, she enjoys rock climbing, biking around Minneapolis, and baking sourdough bread.