Woynaroski Lab: Biobehavioral Approaches in NeuroDevelopment (BAND)
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
BAND Lab Alumni
Former Research Assistants
Chess Bivens
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Chess is a senior majoring in Child Studies and Cognitive Studies. She is interested in child language acquisition in culturally and linguistically diverse communities, as well as developing culturally consistent interventions to assist language acquisition and development. Additionally, she is interested in equine-assisted learning and intervention for individuals with autism.
Kelsea McClurkin
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Kelsea is a senior double majoring in Neuroscience and Child Development. Her interests include identifying how early brain patterns can impact later language outcomes through sensory responsiveness to provide intervention that aids in language development at earlier ages. She is also interested in outreach to underrepresented populations to increase diversity and representation in research. Kelsea is a part of the Maximizing Access to Research (MARC) program, a research community dedicated to providing access to research opportunities to diverse and historically underrepresented undergraduates in STEM.
Leela Waterford
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Leela is a senior majoring in Child Studies with a minor in Language Sciences. Her research interests include sensory differences and communication development in children with developmental delays, as well as intervention approaches for culturally and linguistically diverse populations. She plans to pursue a Master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh.
Drina Agojci
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Drina is a senior majoring in Medicine, Health, and Society and Communication of Science and Technology, with minors in Economics and Business in the College of Arts and Science Honors program. She is completing her senior thesis, where she is investigating how caregiver-child engagement influences later language outcomes in toddlers with autistic and non-autistic siblings. Through VICTR funding, she is also exploring how additional caregiver factors of social supports and coping mechanisms influence later language outcomes of toddlers within this sample.
Drina’s research interests center on working with vulnerable populations and understanding how social and environmental factors shape developmental and health outcomes. She plans to attend medical school in the future and pursue a career focused on equitable patient care and advocacy for underserved communities.
Jennifer Markfeld Magnuson, PhD, CCC-SLP
Graduate Research Assistant, Hearing and Speech Sciences
Jennifer graduated with her PhD in Hearing and Speech Sciences in 2026. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow on an NICHD F32 in the Language, Experience, and Development (LEAD) Lab at the University of Maryland.
Jacob Feldman, PhD, CCC-SLP
Research Fellow
Jacob is completed his masters in Speech-Language Pathology, his PhD in Hearing and Speech Sciences, and an NICDC-funded K99 postdoctoral fellowship at Vanderbilt University in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences. He is currently a Research Scientist I at Boys Town National Research Hospital.
Ellie Pazol
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Ellie graduated with a degree in Medicine, Health and Society and a minor in Special Education in 2025. She is currently completing a Keegan Traveling Fellowship.
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Insung Kim, BS
Research Assistant
Insung was a Research Assistant in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences. He is currently a medical student at Vanderbilt University.
Ava Schwartz
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Ava graduated with highest honors in Neuroscience and Medicine, Health, and Society in 2025. She is currently taking a gap year while applying to medical school.
Kacie Dunham
Graduate Research Assistant
Kacie graduated with a PhD in Neuroscience in 2024. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Boston Children's Hospital.
Zachary Williams
Graduate Research Assistant
Zack graduated with a PhD in neuroscience in 2024. He is currently finishing medical school at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
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Olivia Jamieson
Graduate Research Assistant
Olivia graduated with a degree in Speech-Language Pathology in 2023. She graduated with a bachelors in Speech Communication Disorders and French from the University of Virginia.
Zoë Kiemel
Graduate Research Assistant
Zoë graduated with a degree in Speech-Language Pathology in 2023. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders and a minor in the Spanish language from Texas Christian University in 2021. Zoë has previously pursued research focusing on the oral phase of the swallow in older-healthy adults. She is currently a PhD student at Northwestern University.
Sweeya Raj, BA
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
Sweeya graduated from Vanderbilt with a major in Neuroscience. As a medical student at Vanderbilt, she continued to work in the lab investigating sensory development of children with ASD.
Pooja Santapuram, BA
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2015-2018
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, 2018-2022
Pooja graduated from Vanderbilt with a major in Neuroscience in 2018. As a medical student at Vanderbilt, she continued to work in the lab to complete her honors thesis project looking at the link between attention to audiovisual speech and prelinguistic development in infants at high- and low-familial risk for ASD. Pooja is now a resident in anesthesiology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
Nisha Mailapur
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2020-2023
Nisha graduated with a major in Economics. She was part of The SyBBURE Searle Undergraduate Research Program at Vanderbilt, a research community of undergraduate researchers, scientists, and professionals.
Sophie Kaiser
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2019-2023
Sophie graduated with degrees in Cognitive Studies and Medicine, Health, and Society with minors in Spanish and Special Education. She is currently in Mexico completing a Fulbright Fellowship. As an aspiring speech-language pathologist, Sophie studied language and communication development in infants and children with or at high familial likelihood for an autism diagnosis, with a particular focus on how to best capture the heterogeneity of language in children at age 5.
Jonah Barrett
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2020-2023
Jonah graduated with degree in Neuroscience with a minor in Psychology. He is currently a medical student at the University of Alabama. He studied how altered sensory perception modulates social communication deficits in individuals with autism.
Evan Suzman
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2017-19
Graduate Research Assistant, 2019-2021
Evan graduated from the Biomedical Sciences Program in 2021. He graduated with degrees in Child Development and History from Vanderbilt University in 2019. He is currently a medical student at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Evan's research focused on links between sensory functioning and higher-order processes in infants with ASD.
Varsha Garla
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2018-2021
Varsha graduated with a degree in Neuroscience. Her research involved the diagnosis of ASD in the third year of life.
Sam Bordman, MS, CF-SLP
Graduate Research Assistant, 2019-2021
Sam graduated with a degree in Speech-Language Pathology in 2021. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a Bachelor of Philosophy in Communication Science in 2018. Sam is currently a clinical fellow in speech-language pathology at the VA Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA. Sam's research focused on language development in infants at high risk for autism.
Peter Abdelmessih
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2018-2021
Peter graduated with a major in Neuroscience. His research examined neurophysiological correlates of sensorimotor and multisensory integration adults and children with ASD.
Clare Daly
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2017-2020
Claire graduated with majors in Psychology and Spanish. Her research looked at communication and language development in infants and young children with ASD. She is currently a second-year master's student in the Speech-Language Pathology program at Vanderbilt.
Yupeng Liu
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2017-2020
Yupeng graduated with a degree in Neuroscience. He is currently a medical student at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. While in the lab, Yupeng explored measurement and malleability of audiovisual multisensory integration in children with ASD.
Aine Muhumuza
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2018-2020
Aine graduated with a degree in Neuroscience. Her research involved using electrophyisology to predict later development in infants at high-risk for ASD.
Ashley Augustine
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2017-2018
Ashley graduated with a major in Biological Sciences and began medical school at Case Western Reserve University. Her work examined how parent-child interactions related to later development in infants at high-risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Augustine
Sarah Bowman
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2016-2017
Full Time Research Assistant, 2017-2018
Graduate Research Assistant, 2019
Sarah graduated from Vanderbilt with a major in Medicine, Health, and Society. She stayed in the lab as a research assistant for one year, then returned for a mentored research experience under Dr. Woynaroski before her second year of medical school. She is currently a medical student at the University of Georgia. Her research looked at sensory processing in infants at high- and low-risk for ASD.
Margaret Cassidy
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2017-2019
Maggie graduated from Vanderbilt with a major in Neuroscience and a Math minor. While in the Woynaroski Lab, her research looked at the genetic and neural correlates of sensory function in children with ASD. Currently, her research in Wallace Lab looks at mouse models of sensory functioning in ASD.
Julie Conrad
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2015-2018
Julie graduated from Vanderbilt with a double major in Neuroscience and Medicine, Health, and Society and enrolled in medical school at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research focused on interventions to improve multisensory processing in children with ASD.
Alexandra Golden
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2017-2018
Part Time Research Assistant, 2018-2019
Allie graduated from Vanderbilt with a double major in Child Studies and Medicine, Health, and Society. She spent a year working in lab part-time as a staff research assistant before enrolling at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Her research focused on early intervention aimed at mitigating the developmental sequelae of early sensory differences in high-risk infants.
Wayne Kuang
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2015-2018
Wayne, the first undergraduate student in the Woynaroski Lab, graduated with a major in Neuroscience and a minor in Corporate Strategy. He is currently an osteopathic medical student at Western University of Health Sciences. His research focused on multisensory processing and speech perception in children with ASD.
Prachy Mahbub
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2018
Prachy completed an intensive summer research experience while double majoring in Neuroscience and Religion at Mount Holyoke College. Her interests lie in researching the genetic basis of multisensory differences in children with ASD and novel interventions that can alleviate them.
Emily Terrebonne
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2018-2019
Emily graduated with a major in Neuroscience. After working with Jean-Paul Noel of the Wallace Lab, Emily came to the Woynaroski Lab to complete a project looking at neural correlates of peripersonal space in individuals with ASD.
Alexander Tu
Undergraduate Research Assistant, 2015-2018
Alex graduated with a major in Neuroscience and a minor in Music. He is currently in medical school at the University of Nebraska on a full tuition scholarship. His research looked at the effect of music on multisensory integration and speech perception in children with ASD.