Excited to join San Francisco NPR KQED live call-in radio show forum this coming Monday 12/15 from 10-11am PST! I’ll be joining colleagues to discuss suicide prevention for the autistic community! Grateful for this platform to highlight the needs of this community. Announcement: lnkd.in/g8hbZzqd

😮‍💨 The NOA for Year 4 of my K23 award came in today from the NIMH! Two more years to go and I'm feeling grateful to continue our work!

My lab and I will be hosting a booth this weekend at the @autismspeaks.org Empower Walk & 5K run at UCLA to connect with local families and share about our research studies! We're recruiting autistic youth with and without intellectual disability for various studies, so we hope to see you there!

In honor of Suicide Prevention month, colleagues and I partnered with @afspnational.bsky.social to create an Autism and Suicide webpage: afsp.org/autism-and-s... Proud of this team and hopeful this webpage can be a helpful resource for autistic people and their families!

🆘 Measurement help needed I'm looking for a parent/self-report measure to quantify behavioral crisis events (e.g., suicide, aggression, etc.) in youth. Any suggestions?

🆘 'Tis the season of prepping RPPR docs, Loan Repayment renewal application, and multiple IRB submissions....

🆘 Autistic adolescents & young adults needed for a new study! We aim to study the experiences of autistic & gender diverse young people through online surveys and interviews. Study flyer below and link to register! Link: udenver.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_... Please RT to spread the word!

📣 Autistic adult volunteers needed for a brief online anonymous research study! This dissertation project is led by a new doctoral student in our lab this year, Lauren Bacchus, and she's hoping to recruit participants! Flyer below with info and reposts appreciated!

🎉👏My NIH Loan Repayment award was renewed today! Breathing a sigh of relief. Really grateful for this program and its incredible help in covering my loans! Highly recommend applying for this award and I’m happy to chat with anyone who has questions.

Sharing fun updates from my K23 study on mental health in autistic teens! Recently, we started one-year follow-up visits & created this infographic for our families. We're still recruiting teens (14-17 y.o.) with confirmed or suspected autism in Los Angeles! Call/text 323-207-5910 if interested!

🚨BREAKING: 300+ NIH employees call out the harm of censorship & politicized science in scathing email to Bhattacharya, demanding an end to political interference, a lift on funding freezes, & rehiring of fired staff whose work saves lives. This is historic - insiders are blowing the whistle. 🧵(1/5)

🎉 New paper! The protocol for my K23 study on reward responsivity, depression, & broader mental health in autistic teens is published! An ongoing 5-yr project with some talented collaborators at USC, CHLA, and Vanderbilt. Stay tuned for more to come from this project! Link to paper: rdcu.be/epC81

Question for CBT providers and/or researchers: Do you have a brief, free, and publicly available measure of clinicians' knowledge of CBT? I'm looking for a quick way to gauge a clinician's knowledge of standard CBT for some of our ongoing work. Thank you!

My lab received a new grant from the Southern California Center for Latino Health! 🎉 "Community-guided depression & anxiety treatment for Latino youth with intellectual & developmental disabilities" With our community partners, we will adapt a treatment for Latino youth with IDD. More to come!

Headed to Boston in November 2025 for the International Academy for Suicide Research! Excited for our symposium, "Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors in Autism: Contributors to Risk and Use of Crisis Services" & presenting with @pittreaact.bsky.social & others! suicide-research.org/iasr-afsp-in...

I’m sharing some of our work with autistic teens at #INSAR20205 today from 12:30-1:30pm! 418.047 - Disclosure of Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors and Self-Harm in Autistic Adolescents from Adolescent and Parent Perspectives: A Mixed-Methods Investigation Swing by and say hello! 👋

Looking forward to presenting tomorrow as a panelist at the INSAR 2025 Community Conference! “Taking Care of Each Other – Creating Systems of Care” tomorrow from 12-4:30pm at the Seattle Convention Center! Open to all! Link to event: ihdd.org/2025/03/24/i...

Looking forward to attending and presenting at #INSAR2025 in Seattle this week! Happy to be with fellow autism researchers amidst an incredibly challenging time in science and autism research in the U.S.

Join our #SRS25 symposium tmrw 2 PM EST: "Leveraging Qualitative Methods to Advance Suicide Prevention in Under-Researched Communities" + featuring some work I'm honored to collaborate on! @suicideresearchsym.bsky.social @kathrynfox.bsky.social @drjessicaphd.bsky.social @kirstyclarkphd.bsky.social

Autistic people are not a disease. They never have been. Autistic people have fundamentally shaped our world...an incredibly net positive community. To condemn the existence of any autistic person is unacceptable. Autism is an inherent part of our culture and history, and it always will be.

At the Gatlinburg Conference all week in San Diego! ☀️ I'm excited to connect with colleagues, attend my husband's panels, and support several of my lab members in presenting their research!

It's autism acceptance month! Autistic people have fundamentally improved my life both personally and professionally in countless ways. I'm so grateful to work with, have friends, and connect with family in this community!

🚨New paper out! "Elevated Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors and Nonsuicidal Self-Injury in Autistic Youth and Adults: A Multinational Study" in the journal Autism in Adulthood Link below to the paper and a brief 🧵of findings! Link to paper: www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

🌟Recruiting for study! We aim to study the experiences of autistic & gender diverse teens! We hope to recruit 50 teens to take an online survey, with some participants invited to interview. Study flyer below! Please RT to spread the word! #Autism #Neurodiversity #MentalHealth

@standupforscience.bsky.social today in LA is awesome!! Science is for everyone!

Really looking forward to this!! #standupforscience2025

He's too humble to say anything & not on social media, BUT I'm so excited that my husband started at USC/CHLA today! He's moving his research program on employment in neurodivergent people to CHLA & we couldn't be luckier to have him! Stay tuned for more good things from Ben Schwartzman 🎉

PISSED The NIMH EMHI study section that was supposed to review grants today was "rescheduled" My treatment grant was submitted in October 2024 & took MONTHS to prepare... How can we gripe about the mental health crisis and then SYSTEMATICALLY CUT funding efforts focused on fixing this very issue!

👏 The link to apply to this position has been fixed! We are accepting applications for the next few weeks. Please RT to spread the word!

🎉My lab is hiring 1-2 Research Assistants! Lab website & position posting below! Lab website: www.chla.org/research/lab... Position: jobs.chla.org/careers-home... People interested in neurodiversity, EEG, & mental health more broadly, please consider applying!

🎉My lab is hiring 1-2 Research Assistants! Lab website & position posting below! Lab website: www.chla.org/research/lab... Position: jobs.chla.org/careers-home... People interested in neurodiversity, EEG, & mental health more broadly, please consider applying!

🥳 New paper! "Conceptualizing Pathways to Depression and Anxiety in Autistic Youth Using the Cognitive and Behavioral Model of Low Self-Esteem" Below is the link to the open-access paper and a brief 🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

My lab studies depression and suicide risk in autistic people to figure out why this community is more impacted than others. We then partner with autistic community members to develop treatments with our findings. My funding supports my salary, 2 research assistants, and undergraduate students.

Feeling all the feels about the halts to NIH activities by the new administration? SAME SAME SAME 😡 Calling your elected senators & congress members is a great first action! Links below to find your reps! Senators: www.senate.gov/senators/sen... Congress: www.congress.gov/members/find...

New paper out #openaccess in Molecular Autism today that shows #autistic #trans #nonbinary and #genderdiverse (TGD) people are more likely to have physical and mental health conditions than nonautistic cisgender people. Alongside this, they also reported poorer quality #healthcare bit.ly/4geRRlC

📣 New study alert! Please RT! I'm co-mentoring a student on their study investigating experiences of autistic trans youth in the U.S.! Please see flyer for more information. Participation is voluntary. Link to survey to see if you are eligible: udenver.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

🎉My lab will be hiring 1-2 Research Assistants in the coming months! Official position post coming soon... Lab website: www.chla.org/research/lab... People interested in neurodiversity, clinical research, EEG, & mental health more broadly, please share and stay tuned for updates!

Check on your SoCal / Los Angeles friends…these are scary times

🚨 New year, new paper! Short Report: "Type, content, and triggers for self-injurious thoughts and behaviors in autistic youth and their disclosure to caregivers" Link to article below, and a brief summary! journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

My team is too cute in putting this post together! We had an awesome year! Really proud of their hard work and immensely grateful to the families who support our research and graciously allow us to learn from them. #Neurodiversity #AutismResearch #MentalHealth

First, it’s important to note that a lot of research is still needed to evaluate the cause of autism. The data we do have suggests that it is primarily the result of genetics. What is clear is that vaccines, particularly MMR vaccines, do not cause autism. We know this for several reasons... 2/8

Holiday fun last night with some of my lab members at the LA Zoo and dinner after! I’m so proud of this team and their hard work!

My lab is doing a writing day today…our first one! And so far it’s delightful…10/10 recommend

Collecting longitudinal data is a grind…even if it’s a great study that you’re passionate about…I’m out here to validate the work it takes to collect high-quality data

🚨 Study alert! We are recruiting teens with confirmed or suspected #autism (14-17 yo) into a study on #mentalhealth in the Los Angeles area! We use EEG, interviews, & surveys in our study! For more info, text/call us at (323) 207-5910 or email us at [email protected] RT is appreciated!

Heading to Philly this week (my first time!) to present at @abctnow.bsky.social! I’ll be presenting as a panelist on Friday 11/15 at 1:30pm with colleagues on the symposium: “Community-Partnered Research Approaches to Tailor Evidenced-Based Practices for Autistic People” See you there!

Anyone have an interview transcription software/program that they highly recommend? Looking for something to transcribe patient interviews for a research study. 

My research lab at USC/CHLA is hiring! We're looking for a full-time Health Service & Behavioral Research Associate to join the lab, which studies mental health in autistic people. ✨RT's appreciated! Job Posting: jobs.chla.org/careers-home/j…#HiSciSkyky