Meet Our Team | Boston Children's Research

Principal Investigator

Carol Wilkinson, MD, PhD

Email / ResearchGate / Google Scholar / Twitter

Carol L. Wilkinson is a physician-scientist in the Labs of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Division of Developmental Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. She earned her MD, PhD, and completed her pediatric residency at the University of California, San Francisco. At UCSF, her graduate work in Steven Finkbeiner’s lab focused on molecular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity. She completed her clinical fellowship in developmental behavioral pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital in 2017, and continued her postdoctoral training with Charles Nelson in the Labs of Cognitive Neuroscience. As a Developmental Behavioral Pediatrician in the Autism Spectrum Center and Developmental Medicine Center at Boston Children’s, she cares for children with a variety of neurodevelopmental disorders and challenges. Through her research and clinical work, her goal is to help children maximize their potential in all aspects of their life.

Staff Members

	Anjali Bose Anjali is a new member of the Wilkinson Lab working on the BRIDGE study. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College where she studied psychology and neuroscience, and worked in the DEER Lab investigating the effects of early adversity. Anjali is interested in studying early life experiences, neurodevelopment, and language acquisition, and loves working with young kids. Anjali enjoys reading, trying new foods, and cooking with her friends. She is excited to explore Boston and is looking forward to meeting everyone at the LCN!
	Gabriela Canaveral Gabriela joined Dr. Wilkinson and Dr. Nelson’s Baby Steps team in 2024 after having graduated from Binghamton University in 2023 with a B.S. in Integrative Neuroscience. While at Binghamton University, Gabriela was the Lab Manager at the Center for Transdisciplinary Intimate Relationships Lab, volunteered as an EMT, and worked with children with autism as a teacher’s assistant at the Institute for Child Development. After completing her studies, Gabriela relocated to Boston to work as a Clinical Assistant on the Bone Marrow Transplant floor at Boston Children’s Hospital where she worked with patients who confronted challenges stemming from genetic mutations, cancer or sickle cell disease. As part of the Baby Steps team, she will work with EEG and behavioral assessments to identify markers of Autism or other neurodevelopmental delays/disorders. Gabriela aims to pursue an M.D. path with a focus in Pediatrics and is determined to bridge gaps in research for underserved communities and advocate for Latinx/Black populations in healthcare! In her free time she enjoys going for long walks, coffee runs, and dancing with her friends.
	Brianna Francis Brianna joined Dr. Wilkinson and Dr. Nelson’s lab in the fall of 2021 as a Research Coordinator for the Baby Steps project, which uses EEG to predict ASD and other developmental outcomes in the first year of life. She received her BS in Neuroscience at Quinnipiac University in 2016 and her MA in Applied Developmental Psychology from George Mason University in 2020. After receiving her BS, Brianna worked at the Yale Child Study Center on multiple projects examining the neural mechanisms of pregnancy and parenting with a substance using population. Brianna is thrilled to be part of the Baby Steps team and to contribute to the field of ASD research. Outside of the lab, Brianna loves reading, hiking, and hanging out with her cat.
	McKena Geiger McKena joined Dr. Wilkinson’s lab in the summer of 2021 as Clinical Research Assistant II. In 2019 she received a B.S. in Psychology with minors in Chemistry and Zoology from North Dakota State University. That year, she joined the lab of Dr. Emily Kappenman at San Diego State University, examining the interactions between attention and emotion using ERP techniques. Currently, McKena works on Dr. Wilkinson’s BRIDGE and FRAXA studies, using EEG and behavioral assessments to help answer questions related to language acquisition in children with neurodevelopmental disorders. Having a long-standing interest in computational methodology, she hopes to one day contribute to our understanding of the developing brain as a Computational Cognitive Neurosciencentist. In her free time, McKena enjoys playing piano and eating food prepared by someone else.
	Alex Job Said Alex was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He received his B.Sc in Neuroscience from The George Washington University in 2021. During his undergraduate years, Alex worked as the lab manager of the Lab of Autism and Developmental Neuroscience, focusing on several brain and behavioral-based characteristics of ASD and BAP. More recently, Alex expanded his work into potential links between white matter lesions, autistic traits, and aging. Alex is excited to continue to develop his research knowledge and experience within the field of ASD, here in the Wilkinson and Nelson Labs. He is particularly interested in understanding early brain-based autistic traits through the use of imaging tools and analysis. For the long-term, Alex aims to pursue a M.D. path, and continue to focus on ASD. Outside of research, Alex loves horseback riding, soccer and hiking. He is also decent at cooking, excelling only in Brazilian “churrasco” (BBQ).
	Asher Liu Asher Liu joined Dr. Wilkinson’s and Dr. Nelson’s Baby Steps team after graduating from Tufts University in 2024 with a major in Biology. Throughout his undergraduate years, Asher worked as a student research intern in Dr. Wilkinson’s lab before joining as a full-time research assistant. He will be continuing his work with the Baby Steps team, which uses EEGs in the Primary Care Clinic to better identify early biomarkers of developmental delay and ASD. Asher hopes to pursue an MD and specialize in pediatrics. In his free time, you’ll find Asher training for the Chicago Marathon or watching his favorite baseball team, the Chicago White Sox.
	Maggie Norberg Maggie joined Dr. Wilkinson’s and Dr. Nelson’s Baby Steps team after graduating from Tufts University in 2023 with majors in Biology and English. Throughout her undergraduate years, Maggie worked as a student research intern in Dr. Wilkinson’s lab on the Baby Steps and BRIDGE studies as well as on a project analyzing the natural language samples of patients with Down syndrome. Prior to joining the Labs of Cognitive Neuroscience, she worked as a paraprofessional for students with severe and multiple disabilities, where she developed an interest in education and language-based clinical research. Maggie will be working with the Baby Steps team to use EEG in the Primary Care Clinic to better identify early biomarkers of developmental delay and ASD. In her free time, Maggie loves to ski, sail, hike, and play and teach cello and guitar. She hopes to pursue an M.D. track and ultimately enter pediatrics.
	Meagan Tsou Meagan joined Dr. Wilkinson’s lab in the fall of 2023 after receiving her B.S. in Behavioral Neuroscience at Northeastern University. As part of the BRIDGE team, she works with EEG and behavioral assessments to help better understand how children with and without neurodevelopmental disorders acquire language. Using her prior experiences in autism research and neuropsychiatric testing, and her now role at the Wilkinson Lab, she hopes to pursue a PhD program that allows her to continue working with children of all abilities and backgrounds. She is especially interested in studying differences in neurological development across varying access to and use of intervention services, and how these differences can inform policies to make both research and early intervention more accessible. In her free time Meagan loves to cook and bake, work on her art projects, and hang out with her dog, Pepper!

Graduate Students

Anna Stewart

Anna earned a B.S. degree in communication disorders and psychology from Texas State University, gaining practical experience as a student clinician in a speech-language hearing clinic. During her undergraduate research, she collaborated on developing an app for pragmatic intervention in remote therapy settings for children with autism, addressing barriers in underserved communities. This app was piloted and validated for her honors thesis, supported by a research fellowship. Anna’s career goal is to become an academic clinician-scientist, combining clinical practice with research. She is pursuing a specialized track in the Speech Hearing Bioscience Technology doctoral program at Harvard Medical School where she will receive clinical certification in Speech-Language Pathology while continuing her bioscience training. In the Wilkinson Lab, Anna is involved in the BRIDGE study, developing natural language sampling protocols to understand language profiles and factors influencing language development in children with autism and Down syndrome.

Postdoctoral and Clinical Fellows

	Wenkang 'Winko' An, PhD I received my Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2021, under the supervision of Prof. Barbara Shinn-Cunningham. My dissertation work sought to study the neural representation of human auditory attention. Specifically, I decoded attentional control from multimodal neuroimaging measures (EEG and fMRI) and fused the information in these modalities through a representational similarity analysis framework. In addition, I designed multiple auditory brain-computer interface paradigms, in which I decoded attention from single-trial EEG signals using machine learning. I joined the Nelson and Wilkinson Labs in 2021 as a Rosamund Stone Zander Translational Neuroscience Center Postdoctoral Fellow. My goals here are to understand the neural mechanism underlying impaired abilities in patients with a rare genetic condition, and build computational models that can reliably predict autism and developmental outcomes from EEG.
	Haerin Chung, PhD Haerin received her PhD. from University of Chicago in 2022, where she was a member of the Infant Learning and Development Laboratory at the Center for Early Childhood Research. At UChicago, her graduate work in Amanda Woodward’s lab focused on the link between infants' experience and perception of actions. She investigated the neural correlates that underlie infants’ perception of actions that are associated with infants' experience using an integration of EEG and behavioral methods. Here at the LCN, Haerin seeks to explore the developmental changes in EEG measures, including the trajectory of functional connectivity, of those with, without, and at-risk for autism. Haerin is also interested in understanding how early indices of EEG are associated with different social-cognitive outcomes later in development.
	Becca Thomas, PhD Becca received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Connecticut in 2024, where she was a member of the Early Detection Lab (Drs. Fein and Barton) and the Connecticut Autism and Language Lab (Dr. Eigsti). Her research has focused on the diagnostic process for Autism Spectrum Disorder by examining questions such as the diagnostic items that distinguish toddlers with ASD from those with global developmental delay, and the validity of online administrations of the ADOS in adolescents and young adults. For her dissertation, she created the Initial Diagnostic Impressions Checklist to quantify the behaviors that clinicians use to form initial diagnostic impressions, and whether these impressions are accurate. Clinically, Becca is interested in complex neurodevelopmental cases and pediatric neuropsychological assessments. She is excited to join the Wilkinson Lab and to participate in interdisciplinary research that aims to better understand and characterize the neurodevelopmental process in young children.

Wenkang 'Winko' An, PhD

I received my Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2021, under the supervision of Prof. Barbara Shinn-Cunningham. My dissertation work sought to study the neural representation of human auditory attention. Specifically, I decoded attentional control from multimodal neuroimaging measures (EEG and fMRI) and fused the information in these modalities through a representational similarity analysis framework. In addition, I designed multiple auditory brain-computer interface paradigms, in which I decoded attention from single-trial EEG signals using machine learning. I joined the Nelson and Wilkinson Labs in 2021 as a Rosamund Stone Zander Translational Neuroscience Center Postdoctoral Fellow. My goals here are to understand the neural mechanism underlying impaired abilities in patients with a rare genetic condition, and build computational models that can reliably predict autism and developmental outcomes from EEG.

Haerin Chung, PhD

Haerin received her PhD. from University of Chicago in 2022, where she was a member of the Infant Learning and Development Laboratory at the Center for Early Childhood Research. At UChicago, her graduate work in Amanda Woodward’s lab focused on the link between infants' experience and perception of actions. She investigated the neural correlates that underlie infants’ perception of actions that are associated with infants' experience using an integration of EEG and behavioral methods. Here at the LCN, Haerin seeks to explore the developmental changes in EEG measures, including the trajectory of functional connectivity, of those with, without, and at-risk for autism. Haerin is also interested in understanding how early indices of EEG are associated with different social-cognitive outcomes later in development.

Becca Thomas, PhD

Becca received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Connecticut in 2024, where she was a member of the Early Detection Lab (Drs. Fein and Barton) and the Connecticut Autism and Language Lab (Dr. Eigsti). Her research has focused on the diagnostic process for Autism Spectrum Disorder by examining questions such as the diagnostic items that distinguish toddlers with ASD from those with global developmental delay, and the validity of online administrations of the ADOS in adolescents and young adults. For her dissertation, she created the Initial Diagnostic Impressions Checklist to quantify the behaviors that clinicians use to form initial diagnostic impressions, and whether these impressions are accurate. Clinically, Becca is interested in complex neurodevelopmental cases and pediatric neuropsychological assessments. She is excited to join the Wilkinson Lab and to participate in interdisciplinary research that aims to better understand and characterize the neurodevelopmental process in young children.

Undergraduate Students

	Tanisha Chanda Tanisha is a 3rd year biomedical engineering student at Georgia Tech. She is interested in pursuing interdisciplinary research focusing on pediatric neurodevelopmental disorders, health disparities, and genetics.
	Kathryn Crowley Kathryn Crowley is a senior at Emmanuel College pursuing a B.S. in Neuroscience and Developmental Psychology. She joined as an intern in the Baby Steps Study in the Wilkinson Lab in January 2024, and is excited to continue to build on her experiences assisting with EEG and behavioral data collection and management. She has worked in a variety of settings such as the Boston Child Study Center and Franciscan Children’s Hospital, and is using these opportunities in addition to Baby Steps to learn more about psychological and brain development in children.
	Janani Elumalai Janani C. Elumalai is an undergraduate student at Northeastern University (Class of 2025) majoring in Behavioral Neuroscience with a minor in Law & Public Policy. She joined the Wilkinson Lab as a co-op student on the BRIDGE study team in January 2024, and is excited to continue learning about EEG and neurodevelopmental disorders as a student!
	Danielle Grinberg Dani is an undergraduate research assistant in the Wilkinson Lab, where she is involved in the BRIDGE study. As a senior at Boston University majoring in biochemistry and molecular biology with a minor in public health, she is passionate about exploring how neurodevelopmental disorders impact learning in children. In her free time, Dani enjoys baking, crocheting, and competing in 5Ks, with hopes of running the Boston Marathon someday!
	Michael Khela As a student at Tufts University majoring in biopsychology and child development, I combine my passion for understanding the human mind with hands-on experience as a nurse assistant at BIDMC. When I’m not volunteering with patients, you can find me hiking new trails, exploring the world through travel, or enjoying time with friends!
	Alexis Monk Alexis Monk is a junior at Harvard College concentrating in Neuroscience on the Mind, Brain, Behavior track with a citation in American Sign Language. She joined the Wilkinson Lab as a student intern in January 2023 and works on both the BRIDGE and Baby Steps studies. Alexis is also a member of the Harvard Radcliffe Heavyweight Rowing team and a Harvard Peer Advising Fellow.
	Shefali Verma Shefali is a Behavioral Neuroscience and Data Science student at Northeastern University. In the lab, she hand-edits EEG recordings of children listening to various sounds, hoping to better understand how those with different types of neurodevelopmental disorders process language. She also writes code to automate and manage some of the lab’s data.