Dr. Laird was recently inducted into the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering College of Fellows. Election to the AIMBE College of Fellows is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to medical and biological engineers. Members comprise the top 2% of engineers in these fields. More information can be found here. Congrats, Dr. Laird!

Dr. Laird, Julio, Donisha, and Chloe attended the Graduate Student Appreciation Week (GSAW) 2024 at FIU on April 1-6.

Julio presented a poster on his work about methods for decoding cortical gradients of functional connectivity.

Donisha presented a poster on her recent work studying longitudinal changes in dynamic functional connectivity associated with the Physics Learning data.

Chloe presented a poster on her recent work about habenular alterations in resting state functional connectivity in autism spectrum disorders using the ABIDE dataset.

Taylor Salo successfully defended his dissertation, “Developing and validating open source tools for advanced neuroimaging research”, on June 27, 2022, and has now received his Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience.

In September, Taylor will join the Lifespan Informatics & Neuroimaging Center at the University of Pennsylvania as a post-doc on the neuroinformatics team, under Dr. Ted Satterthwaite.

Brianna Pankey successfully defended her dissertation, “Extended Functional Connectivity Of Convergent Structural Alterations Among Anxiety And Mood Disorders: A Meta-Analysis And Functional Connectivity Analysis”, on November 3, 2021, and has now received her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience.

Congratulations Brianna!

Katie Bottenhorn successfully defended her dissertation, “Understanding individual differents within large-scale brain networks across cognitive contexts”, on June 24, 2021, and has now received her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience. Her work as focused on developing and deploying user-friendly, open-source data analysis techniques for more rigorous study of the variability within and between individuals using functional neuroimaging, endocrine, physiological, and behavioral data.

In the fall, Katie will be starting a post-doc at the University of Southern California in Dr. Megan Herting’s Herting Neuroimaging Lab, studying the role of air pollution in child and adolescent brain development.

Congratulations Katie!

Ranjita Poudel successfully defended her dissertation, “Neurocognitive Mechanisms Associated with Real-world Financial Savings Among Individuals from Lower Income Households”, on June 21, 2021, and has now received her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience. She will officially graduate in the 2021-2022 Fall semester.

Congratulations Ranjita!

Dr. Angie Laird, Katie Bottenhorn, and Taylor Salo gave presentations as part of the OHBM educational course on meta-analyses organized by Kendra Oudyk.

Dr. Laird presented “Overview and history of neuroimaging meta-analyses”, a 15-minute lecture.

Katie Bottenhorn presented “Conventional, or manual, meta-analyses”, a 15-minute lecture.

Taylor Salo led a hands-on tutorial with NiMARE, an hour-long interactive tutorial.

Additionally, all three took part in an hour-long discussion panel with other experts on neuroimaging meta-analysis.

Jessica Flannery successfully defended her dissertation, “Neurobiological Impact of HIV Infection and Chronic Cannabis Use”, on May 28, 2021, and has now received her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience.

Jessica will soon start a post-doc at UNC Chapel Hill in two labs: Dr. Eva Telzer’s Developmental Social Neuroscience Lab and Dr. Kristen Lindquist’s Carolina Affective Science Laboratory.

Congratulations Jessica!

The ABCD-ReproNim Course, a virtual course providing training on reproducible analysis of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study dataset, has completed its final session, a week-long period of group projects, on March 12. The 13-week long free online course hosted 22 ABCD and ReproNim lecturers and offered instruction to 100 Enrolled students and more than 600 Observer students. The concluding Project Week focused on student-led projects that examined various aspects of the ABCD dataset. While the first offering of the course has come to a close, the ABCD-ReproNim Course will be offered again with dates to be announced! In the meantime follow us on Twitter for future announcements and check out the course materials for recordings of the weekly lectures!

Graduate students Katherine Bottenhorn, Jessica Flannery, and Ranjita Poudel were each awarded Dissertation Year Fellowships, from Florida International University’s University Graduate School. This award provides a $16,600 stipend to highly-qualified FIU doctoral students in their final year of graduate school to support the completion and defense of their dissertation research projects.