News

Sonia Warrior and Arthur Louie Deapera, along with PhD candidate Alex Faunce, recently travelled to Vancouver, Canada, to present their work as first authors at the Society for Psychophysiological Research. Sonia's project examined the effects of a stimulant on neural entrainment, Arthur's project studied neural entrainment metrics, sensory and attentional performance and Alex's project related to rhythm, brainwaves and

Angela Scarpa, Ph.D., and graduate student clinician Jennifer Bertollo travelled to Charlottesville, VA in early December to present and exhibit at the UVA STAR Autism Hope Summit. Angela's presentation reviewed emotion regulation difficulties that may be experienced by young autistic children, and tools that may be helpful to address them. Jen offered tours of our Mobile Autism Clinic and shared information about our

Megan Fok and Victoria Izaac, VTCAR PANDA Lab graduate student clinicians, drove to Pennington Gap, VA where Megan presented during a conference hosting Temple Grandin. Megan spoke about Supporting Autistic Individuals in the Transition to Adulthood. Thank you to the Lee County Virginia Extension Office for organizing this important Autism Conference at the Lee Theatre!

Congratulations to Tori Thurston, Assistant Director of Marketing and Fan Experience, and the VT Women's Basketball Team who received the SAFE Community Champion Award. The SAFE basketball games of 2021 and 2022, inspired by #33 Elizabeth Kitley's autistic sister Raven, would not have happened if it weren't for Tori initiating the collaboration in 2021. She worked so hard to create an autism-friendly and inclusive

The SAFE Program, the VT Autism Clinic & Center for Autism Research (VTAC/CAR), and the VT Women's Basketball team collaborated together on our second Autism friendly basketball event!  This game, inspired by #33 Elizabeth Kitley's autistic sister Raven, offered special sensory cues, lowered music volume, and a SAFE space for individuals/families to visit if they needed a more quiet environment.  With over 80 people who

Congratulations to Ya-Yun Chen, who has been awarded Doctoral Fellowship Seed Funding from the Alliance for Neurodevelopment Research. The funding will be used to support Ya-Yun's doctoral dissertation research. Ya-Yun is a PhD student in the Affective Neurodynamics and Development Lab under the supervision of Dr. Tae-Ho Lee. Her research interests include understanding the neural circuitry underlying negative behaviors

Recently, a group of 16 undergraduate psychology research students visited Randolph College representing the Center for Applied Behavior Systems (CABS) and Virginia Tech to attend the mid-Atlantic regional conference for undergraduate students. There were six posters presented and below you will find the titles and corresponding authors:

“Effects of Interpersonal Kindness from Students to Professors on Mood Status for

Dr. Vanessa Diaz was thinking "outside of the box" when it came to her recent "Draw a scientist" instruction and research. During this instruction, Dr. Diaz interviews children to see how they develop ideas around gender and who can be a scientist. Diaz's research was so influential that it is now a recurring line in a poem by Erika Meitner as well as a musical composition by Charles Nichols. Read the full article by RJ

Dr. Charles Calderwood and Dr. Rosanna Breaux collaborated to better understand how working parents of children with special needs navigated teleworking and virtual schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic and how the situation created stress for those parents. Read more now.

Dr. Rosanna Breaux, assistant professor and director of both the CALMER Lab and Child Study Center, was recognized with honorable mentions for two awards, the first for the Kathy Sylva ‘Rising Star’ Award from the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, in which she came in second place. Watch the video now!

The second is for her recent publication in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry – the