Lab News
Recent News Updates
Spring 2023
Marissa's Master's thesis project has been published in Brain and Language!
Fall 2022
Catherine gave invited talks at the FLUX society meeting and the Posterior Fossa Society meeting discussing the potential importance of cerebellar learning mechanisms on cognition and cognitive development.
Our work has been featured in an article by Diana Kwon in The Scientist - check it out here!
Lab Alum Dr. Anila D'Mello received a Bridge to Independence Fellowship from the Simons Foundation!
New PhD student Joe Dust has joined the lab! Welcome, Joe!
Summer 2022
We are excited to start two new NIH-funded projects in the lab!
Summer 2022
NASA/STEM and CAS Undergraduate Summer Research Award, Emily Barnes.
April 2022
Marissa presented a poster entitled “Cerebellar modulation of reading speed and accuracy” at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
March 2022
Best Workshop Presentation by a Graduate Student in the Natural Sciences, Marissa Marko, Robyn Mathias Student Research Conference, American University.
Our students presented at the Robyn Mathias Student Research conference! Well done to Marissa, Nicole, Kyra and Sarisha.
May 2022
Dr. Laura Rice won the Outstanding Scholarship at the Graduate Level award!
Congrats to our 2022 graduates!
Undergraduate Bachelor’s in Neuroscience: Nicole Loy (Honors in Neuroscience), Kyra
Lozynskyj (Honors in Neuroscience), Sarisha Jagasia and Cecelia Cropp
PhD in Behavior, Cognition and Neuroscience: Laura Rice
Past News Updates
May 2021
CONGRATULATIONS to our 2021 lab grads! We will miss you, Ally, Brian, Jack, Lily, and Sheila!
April 2021
Sarisha has been awarded a Matthias / NASA STEM summer fellowship! Congrats, Sarisha!
Laura's Master's thesis has been published in Neuroscience!
October 2020
Our work was discussed in an article on the cerebellum in The Atlantic.
August 2020
Laura successfully defended her Master's thesis, entitled "Differential modulation of motor and non-motor networks with cerebellar tDCS". Congrats, Laura!
June 2020
Laura "presented" her poster entitled "The cerebellum modulates the acquisition of social information in autism" at the 2020 International Society for Autism Research meeting. Her work was highlighted in the Spectrum newsletter. Well done, Laura!
Our collaborator Peter Tsai is featured in this video on how the cerebellum is linked to autism.
October 2019
We had a busy SfN 2019! Marissa presented a poster on our collaborative work with Dr. Lauren McGrath at the University of Denver. Catherine gave a talk at an NIMH-sponsored satellite event and spoke in a sympoisum in honor of Professor Masao Ito at the main SfN meeting. It was an exciting meeting for cerebellar work, from cells to systems!
August 2019
Our DoD submission with Peter Tsai at UT Southwestern has been awarded! We are excited to continue our work investigating the role of the cerebellum in autism.
April 2019
Rachel won Best Poster Presentation in the Natural Sciences by a junior/senior at the Mathias Student Research Conference!
Laura won the award for Best Paper Presentation by a graduate student at the Mathias Student Research Conference!
The full list of winners can be found
here.
December 2018
Our article has been named a "Notable paper in autism research" for 2018!
Catherine has been named a 2018 Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science in recognition of outstanding contributions to the science of psychology.
Congrats to Liz, who successfully defended her MA thesis!
Catherine was honored to give an invited talk at the 2018 Fujihara Seminar "The cerebellum as a CNS hub" in Tokyo.
May 2018
Congratulations to our graduates! Brianne Drury, Stephanie Martin, and Alyssa Lillian graduated with B.S. Neuroscience degrees!
April 2018
Congratulations to Laura, who has been awarded the prize for "Best Poster in the Natural Sciences by a Graduate Student" at the 2018 Robyn Rafferty Mathias conference! Laura has won a travel grant to an upcoming conference!
October 2017
Our work with collaborator Peter Tsai, "Altered cerebellar connectivity in autism spectrum disorders and cerebellar-mediated rescue of autism-related behaviors", has been published in Nature Neuroscience!
May 2017
Congrats to our 2017 Graduates!
Anila D'Mello, PhD, Behavior, Cognition, and Neuroscience
Caitlin Barrett, BS, Neuroscience
Darina Chudnovskaya, MS, Quantitative Analysis
Sophie Kotik, BS, Neuroscience
March 2017
Catherine presented Grand Rounds in Neurology at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
Anila successfully defended her doctoral dissertation, "Cerebellum and Language: Applications to Autism"! Congrats, Dr. D'Mello!
December 2016
Dora's Master's thesis has been accepted for publication in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience! This study was conducted together with Lauren McGrath. The article is entitled "The developmental relationship between specific cognitive domains and grey matter in the cerebellum".
October 2016
In collaboration with Jeremy Schmahmann and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital, our article "Location of lesion determines motor vs. cognitive consequences in patients with cerebellar stroke" has been accepted for publication by NeuroImage: Clinical.
June 2016
Tina successfully defended her Master's thesis! Congrats, Tina!
Together with Peter Turkeltaub, we have published tDCS and tDCS-fMRI data from healthy young adults that support the potential use of cerebellar tDCS in aphasia.
April 2016
Caitlin received the award for Best Undergraduate Presentation in the Sciences at the Robyn Rafferty Mathias conference!
Caitlin and Sophie presented posters at the Robyn Rafferty Mathias conference!
Anila presented a poster on our combined tDCS-fMRI data at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) Annual Meeting in New York City, NY.
Together with Catherine Limperopoulos, we have published a review paper on structure-function relationships in the developing cerebellum.
August 2015
We have published a review discussing the role of the cerebellum is implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders.
April 2015
Catherine gave a talk at the Gaitlinburg Conference in New Orleans.
Dora successfully defended her Master's thesis!
Dora presented her Master's thesis findings at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA.
Catherine's R15 NIH grant was funded!
February 2021
Laura is featured as an AU Changemaker - see her profile here!
November 2020
Marissa successfully defended her Master's thesis "Shared grey matter correlates of reading and attention"! Well done, Marissa!
July 2020
Laura's functional connectivity analysis is part of a new publication in Nature Neuroscience with our collaborator Peter Tsai at UT Southwestern. We highlight a difference in functional connectivity between the cerebellum and the medial prefrontal cortex in autism.
We contributed to the newly-published consensus paper on the role of the cerebellum in social cognition, organized by Frank Van Overwalle.
May 2020
Congrats to our Lab Graduates! We wish all the best to Alicia, Hayli, and Alyssa. All three graduated with a B.S. in Neuroscience. We will miss you!
April 2020
Hayli, Marissa, and Laura all presented at the virtual Robyn Mathias Student Research Conference! Marissa and Hayli were both recognized for their outstanding poster presentations.
February 2020
Catherine was honored to be recognized with the Provost's Award for Outstanding Faculty Mentorship in Undergraduate Research.
November 2019
Our new paper with Lauren McGrath has been published in the Journal of Neurodevelopmental disorders. We conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the potential overlapping neural correlates of dyslexia and ADHD.
July 2019
Catherine gave an invited talk at the Cerebellum Gordon Research Conference in Les Diablerets, Switzerland.
June 2019
Catherine gave an invited talk at the Institut Pasteur, Paris.
May 2019
Congrats to our graduates! Best of luck to Rachel and Mariam, and lab alum Madison, who all graduated with Bachelor of Science degrees in Neuroscience!
Catherine and Laura traveled to Montreal for the International Society for Autism Research Annual meeting to present findings in a panel on the cerebellum and autism.
March 2019
Hayli is one of only 5 students across the University to win an AU Summer Scholars Award! Congrats, Hayli!
February 2019
Mariam has been awarded the 2019 Academic Achievement Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research or Creative Work by a Junior. Well done, Mariam!
November 2018
Laura presented work from our combined tDCS-fMRI studies at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA.
September 2018
Catherine gave an invited talk at the Iowa Neuroscience Institute 2018 Workshop "The cerebellum in bipolar disorder and other neuropsychiatric diseases".
March 2018
Catherine has been named the recipient of the 2018 Morton Bender Prize for outstanding scholarly achievement since attaining the rank of Associate Professor.
Brianne was part of a team of students that won AU's Global Health Competition! Read more here:
Five students presented at the 2018 Robyn Rafferty Mathias Student Research Conference! Congrats to Laura, Stephanie, Alyssa, Rachel and Maddie!
December 2017
Here is some press coverage of our work on the cerebellum and autism:
November 2017
Our Nature Neuroscience article is a cover article! https://www.nature.com/neuro/volumes/20/issues/12
We presented our work in two poster sessions at the Society for Neuroscience Annual meeting in DC.
June 2017
Catherine has been granted tenure and has been promoted to Associate Professor!
April 2017
Anila has won the "Outstanding Scholarship at the Graduate Level" award from American University! She will be honored at an awards ceremony and at graduation. Congrats, Anila!
Caitlin won "Best Oral Presentation by an Undergraduate in the Life Sciences" at the Robyn Mathias Student Research Conference! Congratulations, Caitlin!
January 2017
Anila is the lead author on our article "Cerebellar tDCS modulates neural circuits during semantic prediction: A combined tDCS-fMRI study", which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Neuroscience! This work was conducted in collaboration with Peter Turkeltaub at Georgetown.
November 2016
Catherine gave an invited seminar on "The Cerebellum and Cognition" at the University of Colorado Boulder.
September 2016
Catherine gave an invited talk at the SickKids Neurosciences & Mental Health Emerging Frontier "Autism in the Cerebellum" Mini-symposium. Her talk was entitled "Cerebellum and Autism: From subregions to systems".
Lauren McGrath's R15 award has been funded by NIMH! We are co-Investigators on this project investigating the cognitive and neural predictors of comorbid reading and attention problems.
May 2016
Anila presented a poster at the International Meeting for Autism Research in Baltimore, MD.
March 2016
We published a study reporting that ASD children with early language delay and without early language delay show cerebellar grey matter differences even when matched on ADOS, ADI, and WISC subscales.
February 2016
Catherine's R21 proposal was funded! We'll be starting a new project in collaboration with Peter Turkeltaub at Georgetown University studying the effects of cerebellar tDCS on post-stroke aphasia.
November 2015
We have published a new review on cerebro-cerebellar circuits in autism.
July 2015
Devon successfully defended his PhD dissertation! Congrats, Devon!
May 2015
Anila presented a poster and Catherine gave an invited talk at the Society for Research on the Cerebellum meeting in Brussels.
January 2015
Devon has secured a Post-doctoral position at the University of Utrecht in the lab of Dr. Durston! Congrats, Devon!
November 2014
Devon and Catherine each presented a poster at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.
Anila gave a Nanosymposium talk at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.