Advancing knowledge of human development, developmental disabilities, and neurodegenerative diseases.
Academic staff members bring UW–Madison’s mission to life — they are gifted teachers, world-class researchers and dedicated administrators. None of that has changed with COVID-19. If anything, their creativity and dedication is more needed and more apparent than ever right now. Though the ceremony to recognize this year’s winners of Academic Staff Excellence Awards has …
Six University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, including Waisman Center investigator and psychologist Seth Pollak, PhD. Pollak is the College of Letters & Science Distinguished Professor of Psychology. At UW–Madison’s Waisman Center, he researches the link between childhood stress and well-being. Pollak’s team has uncovered the …
“I then found in speech-language pathology a wonderful marriage of my love for language and communication and helping individuals with disabilities, and came to UW-Madison to complete my graduate degree,” says Kanter, who has worked as a full-time speech-language pathologist, or SLP, at the Waisman Center since June 2018.
Leann Smith DaWalt, PhD, a longtime Waisman Center investigator, began her appointment as the director of the University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) on Oct. 14. She succeeds Bill MacLean, PhD, who retired in early October. The UCEDD supports the full inclusion and self-determination of people with developmental disabilities and their families through …
After 27 years as the director of the Waisman Early Childhood Program (WECP), Joan Ershler, PhD, retired in early September 2019. The WECP is a model inclusive early childhood program with a developmentally diverse enrollment serving children with special needs alongside their typically developing peers. Under her leadership, the program grew substantially. The number of children …
On September 23, the Waisman Center welcomed Ann Marie Lauritzen, MMSW, M.Ed, as the new director of the Waisman Early Childhood Program. She succeeds Joan Ershler, PhD, who retired at the beginning of September after 27 years of service. “I am excited to work with such a positive, caring and devoted staff,” Lauritzen says. “Supporting …
The Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, launched a new fund to support interdisciplinary research in the area of intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) genomics.
Waisman Center investigator David Gamm, MD, PhD, and affiliate Krishanu Saha, PhD, are part of a team of scientists at the University of Wisconsin- Madison who were recently granted a major award from the National Institute of Health’s Somatic Cell Genome Editing Consortium (SCGE). This award will support research focused on developing quality control methods …
Xinyu Zhao, PhD, received the 2018 National Fragile X Foundation (NFXF) Research Award for outstanding contributions to the understanding of fragile X syndrome. Zhao is a professor of neuroscience and Waisman Center investigator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A multi-institution study of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) led by Maureen Durkin, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Waisman Center, has been selected as one of the top advances in 2017 ASD research by the federal Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee. Among the study’s findings was that children living in neighborhoods where incomes are low and fewer …
