Graduate Students/Post-Doctoral Fellows

Stephanie Crawford, Ph.D. Student
stephanie.crawford@northwestern.edu

Stephanie Crawford is a doctoral student in Communication Sciences and Disorders who has worked with children with autism and related neurodevelopmental disabilities for many years.

Stephanie has worked with Dr. Losh since 2012, beginning as a research assistant in the lab and later as a research project manager where she played a central role in managing the lab’s ongoing grants and projects. As a doctoral student, Stephanie continues to play an important role in the lab’s projects, including working closely with families, mentoring undergraduate students, and coding and analyzing data for projects and manuscripts. She is especially interested in understanding social-communication in autism and related developmental disabilities.

Stephanie is aiming toward a career as a clinical researcher in an academic setting specializing in autism and developmental disabilities.

Stephanie earned her B.A. in Speech and Hearing Sciences at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA.

Mitra Kumareswaran, Ph.D. Student
mitra.kumareswaran@northwestern.edu

Mitra Kumareswaran is a doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. Program at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Her clinical emphasis is in Child and Adolescent Psychology, and Pediatric Neuropsychology. Mitra is specifically interested in working with children with neurodevelopmental disabilities including autism spectrum disorder and/or intellectual disability.

Mitra has been working with children with neurodevelopmental disabilities for the past ten years in both research and therapeutic settings. During her undergraduate career at the University of Georgia, Mitra worked as a research assistant at the UGA Clinical and Cognitive Neurosciences Lab and the UGA Child Autism and Attention Research/Evaluation Lab. Prior to joining the NDL, she completed a pre-doctoral research fellowship in Speech Science and Engineering at the Marcus Autism Center in collaboration with Emory University and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

Mitra is aiming towards a career as a pediatric neuropsychologist in an academic center. She intends to combine her love for clinical practice with scientific inquiry.

Mitra earned her B.S. in Biology (with an emphasis in neuroscience) and B.A. in English at the University of Georgia, and her M.S. in Clinical Psychology at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine.

Sarah Ethridge, Ph.D. Student
sarah.ethridge@northwestern.edu

Sarah Ethridge is a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology, and is specializing in Child and Adolescent Psychology and Neuropsychology.

Prior to joining the NDL, Sarah worked with individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilites for many years. Her interest in neurodevelopmental research stems from both her work as a Youth Ambassador for Tourette syndrome and her education in neuroscience at Davidson College. Most recently, Sarah worked as a Postbaccalaureate IRTA at the National Institute of Mental Health, contributing to research projects investigating the behavioral phenotypes of rare genetic disorders associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability (ID), such as fragile X syndrome.

Through this work, Sarah has developed interests in the etiology, assessment, and evidence-based treatment of social communication deficits associated with neurodevelopmental disorders. Currently, she contributes to research efforts assessing prosody and characterizing prosodic profiles associated with social communication deficits in individuals with ASD and fragile X syndrome.

Sarah hopes to gain training in clinical child psychology and developmental neuropsychology. Long-term, her goals include working in an academic healthcare system developing and validating assessment instruments measuring social communication in individuals with ID, who constitute an under-researched clinical cohort.

Maureen Butler, Ph.D. Student
maureen.butler@northwestern.edu

Maureen is a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology, specializing in Child and Adolescent Psychology and Neuropsychology.

Maureen has worked with the autistic community for many years, both in research and clinical settings. During her undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she worked as a research assistant at the Waisman Center’s Child Emotion Research Lab. Prior to joining the NDL, she completed a post-baccalaureate research fellowship at the Yale Child Study Center’s Social and Affective Neuroscience of Autism Laboratory. She then worked with the NDL as a research coordinator before beginning her graduate studies.

Maureen is interested in understanding the neurocognitive and psycholinguistic mechanisms that underly complex language differences in individuals with autism, their family members, and individual with related developmental disabilities.

Maureen hopes to build a career as a pediatric neuropsychologist at an academic medical center, where she can make meaningful contributions to research while simultaneously serving families through clinical practice.

Maureen earned her B.A. in psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dante’s research interests center on exploring the neuropsychological, neurological, and genetic correlates of neurodevelopmental disorders in pediatric populations. His goal is to stratify clinically homogeneous subgroups, delineate underlying mechanisms mediating long-term development, and improve targeted interventions to enhance quality of life outcomes.

Alicia recently joined the NDL as a research graduate student. Alicia’s passion for pediatrics can be traced back to her senior year of high school in Chicago when she started her research on the Deaf community and milestones for children in diverse cultures, which sparked a curiosity  in human development, communication differences, and the unique world of neurodiversity. After graduating from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with a B.S. in Speech and Hearing Science and an M.S. in Applied Behavior Analysis from The Chicago School, she has begun to continue her education at Northwestern University where she will obtain her PhD in Communication Sciences and Disorders. For Alicia, opening our minds to both behavior science and related sciences will increase our services to create bridges between areas where there are limited or out-of-scope approaches, and provide comprehensive care. Alicia’s specific interests include understanding verbal behavior and its connections to neurology and communicative disorders.