Tony Wilson, Center Director Dr. Wilson is the Patrick E. Brookhouser Endowed Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience and the Senior Director of the Institute for Human Neuroscience. Dr. Wilson was the lead architect of the Center for Pediatric Brain health. His research program uses multimodal neuroimaging to investigate the oscillatory neural dynamics that underlie visual processing, attention, and motor control, and how these dynamics predict cognitive performance in real time across the lifespan. As Center Director, he works closely with the Center Administrator and the Supervisory & Mentoring Committee to guide its development.
Max Kurz, Associate Center DirectorDr. Kurz is Research Scientist and the Director of the Physiology of Walking and Engineering Rehabilitation (PoWER) Laboratory at Boys Town National Research Hospital. Dr. Kurz is an expert on motor control deficits in children with neurological disorders. He serves as the Associate Director for the Center for Pediatric Brain Health. As Associate Director, he works closely with the Center Director and the Center Administrator to guide it's development.
Melissa Welch-Lazoritz, Center Administrator Ms. Welch-Lazoritz provides administrative oversight for all aspects of the Center and works closely with the Center Director, Project Leaders, and the Supervisory & Mentoring Committee to ensure that the Center fulfills its goals. She has expertise in financial operations, proposal development, and a strong background in strategic planning and programmatic management of research.
Lisa Houseman, MRI Research Specialist Ms. Houseman is Co-Manager of the Neural Quantification & Imaging Core and the lead MRI technician for the Center for Pediatric Brain Health. She has over ten years of experience as a clinical and research MRI Technologist and works with investigators to obtain the highest quality images possible from the Center's state of the art 3T Siemens Prisma MRI system.
Nichole Knott, MEG Specialist Ms. Knott is Co-Manager of the Neural Quantification & Imaging Core and the lead MEG technician for the Center for Pediatric Brain Health. She has over ten years of experience as a clinical and research MEG Technologist and oversees the Center's SQUID-based MEG systems.
Gaelle Doucet, Research Project Leader Dr. Doucet leads the Developmental changes in the reconfiguration of brain networks and their association with psychiatric traits during adolescence at the Center for Pediatric Brain Health. Dr. Doucet is a Research Scientist at Boys Town National Research Hospital and the Director of the Brain Architecture, Imaging, and Cognition (BrAIC) Lab. Her work involves the investigation of brain architecture and its relation to cognition in health and disease and she has developed expertise in the use of resting-state fMRI to characterize the brain's functional organization.
Elizabeth Heinrichs-Graham, Research Project Leader Dr. Heinrichs-Graham leads the Characterizing the Impact of Auditory Experience on Language, Cognitive, and Neural Development in Children project at the Center for Pediatric Brain Health. Dr. Heinrichs-Graham is Director of the Cognitive and Sensory Imaging Laboratory in the Institute for Human Neuroscience at Boys Town National Research Hospital. Her work utilizes advanced neuroimaging methods such as MEG and structural MRI, coupled with advanced behavioral testing, to identify the dynamics of brain function and dysfunction throughout development.
Brittany Taylor, Research Project Leader Dr. Taylor leads the Cognitive, Immunological, and Neurophysiological Consequences of Home Radon Exposure in Children and Adolescents project at the Center for Pediatric Brain Health. Dr. Taylor is a Research Scientist at Boys Town National Research Hospital and the Director of the Neurodiversity Laboratory. Her primary works are centered on developing and testing models of individual differences in cognitive and brain development, with an emphasis on environmental and biological factors impacting maturation and outcomes.
Vince Calhoun, Mentor and Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Calhoun is the founding director of the Center for Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science (TReNDS) and a Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at Georgia State University. He serves as a mentor to Dr. Doucet and as a member of the Supervisory Committee for the Center for Pediatric Brain Health. His research focuses on the development of flexible methods to analyze functional magnetic resonance imaging data such as independent component analysis (ICA), deep learning for neuroimaging, data fusion of multimodal imaging and genetics data, neuroinformatics tools, and the identification of biomarkers for disease.
Cecile Ladouceur, Mentor and Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Ladouceur is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. She serves as a member of the Supervisory Committee for the Center for Pediatric Brain Health. Her research focuses on the neurodevelopment of emotion regulation, puberty and adolescent brain development, and sex differences in risk for anxiety/mood disorders.
Lori Leibold, Mentor and Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Leibold is the PI of the Center for Perception and Communication in Children and also the Director of the Center for Hearing Research at Boys Town National Research Hospital. She serves as a mentor to Dr. Heinrichs-Graham and as a member of the Supervisory Committee for the Center for Pediatric Brain Health. Her research focuses on understanding how the ability to hear and understand sounds in the presence of competing background sounds develops. She is particularly interested in understanding how infants and children learn to hear and process target sounds such as speech in noisy environments.
Ryan McCreery, Mentor and Supervisory Committee Member Dr. McCreery is the Director of Research at Boys Town National Research Hospital, as well as the Audibility, Perception, and Cognition Laboratory. He serves as a mentor to Dr. Heinrichs-Graham and as a member of the Supervisory Committee for the Center for Pediatric Brain Health. His research aims to describe how amplification, language and cognition support speech perception in children who are hard of hearing in effort to maximize outcomes for children wearing hearing aids.
Gregory Miller, Mentor and Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Miller is a Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University. He serves as a mentor to Dr. Taylor and as a member of the Supervisory Committee for the Center for Pediatric Brain Health. His research focuses on how stress affects health. In recent years I've become especially interested in stressors that occur during early life, and how they might get biologically embedded in people in a manner that reverberates across the lifespan.
Beatriz Luna, Mentor and Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Luna is a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and the Editor-in-Chief of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. She serves as a member of Mentoring and Supervisory Committee for the Center for Pediatric Brain Health. Her research focuses on characterizing neurocognitive development through adolescence probing cognitive control, reward, and reinforcement learning using multimodal neuroimaging (fMRI, DTI, rsfMRI, MRSI, and PET).
Paul Thompson, Mentor and Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Thompson is a Professor of Ophthalmology, Neurology, Radiology, Psychiatry, and Engineering at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine. He is also the Associate Director of the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute. Dr. Thompson serves a member of the Center for Pediatric Brain Health's Supervisory and Mentoring Committee. His research focuses on the neuroscience, mathematics, computer science, software engineering and clinical aspects of neuroimaging and brain mapping.
