Congratulations to Helena Rutherford, who was awarded the 2023 Yale Postdoctoral Mentoring Prize for faculty, an annual award presented by the Office for Postdoctoral Affairs in conjunction with the Yale Postdoctoral Association to recognize a faculty member who exemplifies the role of a mentor to their postdoc. The winner of the prize is chosen based on recommendations from mentees. This year the review resulted in a tie and so there are joint awardees: Helena Rutherford and Eugene Higgins Professor of Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology John Carlson.

Congratulations to Craig Bailey for his new grant!

Project title: The School Climate Walkthrough: A Student-Led Digital Tool to Improve School Experiences for All

Funder: Digital Promise

Project period: 08/01/23 - 10/31/23

Congratulations to Carla Stover on her new RO1 award!

Project title: Examining Therapeutic Change Mechanisms in an Affect Regulation, Father-Focused Intervention for Reducing Family Violence and Associated Symptoms in Children

Funder: NIH

Project period: 09/01/23 - 05/31/28

Tangular Irby, M.A.T.,6th Year Educational Leadership, is the program manager of content for the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. For over 25 years, Tangular has worked as an educator in the State of Connecticut. She has served students of all ages (Pre-K to adults) in various roles including teacher, building administrator, and curriculum supervisor. Tangular is also an adjunct at Sacred Heart University’s Farrington College of Education. Most recently, she has added author to her title — publishing two children’s books, two coloring books, and two journals. She enjoys spending time with her family, especially her nieces, and reading.

Dr. Sondalle is a Solnit Integrated Fellow in Child, Adolescent, and Adult Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine. He grew up in rural Wisconsin. As a first-generation college graduate, he majored in both Biology and Chemistry at Ripon College in Wisconsin. He participated in summer research as an undergraduate in the Chemistry department at UW-Madison and at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. Dr. Sondalle completed his M.D. and Ph.D. training in the Medical Scientist Training Program at the Yale University School of Medicine. His Ph.D. research in Genetics investigated the biological process of making ribosomes, the cellular machines responsible for protein production, and how defects in this process cause human disease. As a resident and fellow, Dr. Sondalle has diverse interests, including psychoanalysis, the treatment of trauma, and the interplay between inflammation and psychiatric illness.

Tara Thompson-Felix received her undergraduate degree from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ and her MD from Rutgers, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Prior to medical school, she worked as a postgraduate research associate in the Yale Child Study Center focusing on investigating the genetic basis of developmental language and behavioral disorders. After earning her M.D., she trained in adult psychiatry at the Lewis Katz Temple University medical school. At Temple, she served as a chief resident and completed the child and research track. Her research involved collaborations with the Temple OB/GYN and neuroscience department to investigate the epigenetic landscape of fetal neural exosomes associated with in utero exposure to opiates. Based on this work, Dr. Thompson-Felix was selected as an APA research colloquium awardee in 2018. Dr. Thompson-Felix is also a National Neuroscience Curriculum Initiative (NNCI) scholar and continues to work on developing new teaching materials, including a “this stuff is really cool” talk on exosomes and clinical commentary published in the Journal of Biological Psychiatry (2019). She was awarded the 2020 George Ginsberg Fellowship award from the American Association of Directors of Psychiatry Residency Training (AADPRT), acknowledging her commitment to teaching and education. Dr. Thompson-Felix is interested in improving child development starting from the in-utero experience and maternal health. At this time, she is pursuing her PhD in the Yale Investigative Medicine Program through the Yale Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Her current project focuses on understanding the impact of maternal obesity on child neurodevelopment through the characterization of placenta and fetal neuron derived extracellular vesicles. This work is supported by various awards including the NRSA T32 training program, NIH Loan Repayment Program, and 2022 YCSC trainee pilot award. In her spare time, she enjoys dancing with her kids, spending time with family and cooking cultural dishes.

Dr. Julie Wolf is a licensed clinical psychologist at the Yale Child Study Center in New Haven, CT. She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Connecticut in 2005, where she studied facial recognition in autism under the mentorship of Dr. Deborah Fein. She completed her clinical internship, including a rotation in autism spectrum disorders, at the University of Chicago, and her post-doctoral fellowship at the Yale Child Study Center under the mentorship of Dr. Robert Schultz. Presently, she serves as the Associate Director of the Developmental Disabilities Clinic at the Yale Child Study Center, conducting clinical evaluations, social skills groups, and sibling support groups. She also provides clinical characterization for a number of federally-funded studies of autism.