YCSC Connections

Featuring updates, news you can use, events, and more from the Yale Child Study Center.

Chair's Message

As this month’s “On Leadership” column indicates, spring is a time of renewal, and I do hope you are finding time to pause and take in the beauty that surrounds us, especially in New England.

It is, as ever, a busy time at the center, with a variety of special events and sharing of the incredible, innovative work being done across the department. Some of this is highlighted below, with more to come in May, when we will also be coming together in community to celebrate our faculty and staff members' long-term service at Yale and looking forward to graduation and community awards in June. Indeed, it is a time of rejuvenation and coming together, with many events and happenings!


Linda Mayes, MD
Arnold Gesell Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Psychology; Chair
Yale Child Study Center

Departmental News & Updates

Drawing inspiration from spring’s magical rebirth, the latest Yale Child Study Center “On Leadership” blog post focuses on moments of professional renewal and rejuvenation shared by a few members of the department.

Yale Child Study Center (YCSC) Professor Kasia Chawarska, Senior Research Scientist Suzanne Macari, and their co-authors were honored with the 2024 Nancy Staub Publications Award for excellence in writing on the art of puppetry on March 21.

On Tuesday, April 2, 2024, the Yale Child Study Center's Education Collaboratory hosted a first of its kind "Spring Education Mini-Conference." Leading up to the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) and American Education Research Association (AERA) conferences in Philadelphia, YCSC Associate Professor Christina Cipriano organized this hybrid meeting of collaborators from across the nation.

The results of the Yale Child Study Center Spring 2024 round of awards for the department’s postgraduate travel award have been announced. The award offers $500 toward travel expenses for YCSC postgraduate associates attending national or international scientific conferences.

The Education Collaboratory at Yale was launched at the YCSC in July 2023 and has been regularly spotlighting the lab's dedicated team members, highlighting their research and what connects them to the team's mission to advance the science and practice of SEL. In this spotlight, meet Undergraduate Research Assistant Stephanie Owusu.

In this Education Collaboratory spotlight, meet Undergraduate Research Assistant Hiroko Kawase.

In this Education Collaboratory spotlight, meet Communications Assistant Ezinwa Osuoha.

View the latest opportunities for talented individuals seeking to improve the lives of children and families through research, service, and training at the Yale Child Study Center.

Upcoming Special Events

Apr 2024
18
Thursday
8:30 AM 4:00 PM
Katarzyna Chawarska, PhD - Nigel Bamford, MD, FANA - Thomas Fernandez, MD - Kelly Powell, PhD - Sara Sánchez-Alonso, PhD - Dustin Scheinost, PhD, BS - Nicholas Turk-Browne, PhD - Angelina Vernetti, PhD - Adriana Di Martino, MD
5:30 PM 8:00 PM
James Leckman, MD, PhD - Kyle King - Giovanni Caccamo
May 2024
8
Wednesday
May 2024
9
Thursday
News You Can Use

In this episode, Dr. Canapari and Arielle welcome their first guest, pediatric psychologist Dr. Danielle Garay from the Yale Pediatric Sleep Program to discuss the role of psychology in treating children’s sleep difficulties, focusing on anxiety, nighttime fears, tantrums, and separation anxiety.
Source: Craig Canapari, MD

New research from Yale Child Study Center Assistant Professor Kieran O’Donnell and his team suggests that pregnancy accelerates aging, but with an important caveat – there appears to be significant reversal of this effect in the postpartum period.

In a recent article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Yale Child Study Center Assistant Professor Daryn H. David argues for a paradigm shift in what professionalism and career success look like in academic medicine, calling for a “coach approach” option for faculty.

Eye movements are part of the process of telling people apart, and could provide information to clinicians about how people with autism process social information differently from non-autistic persons.

Coinciding with World Bipolar Disorder Awareness Day, a video was created about the research led by Hilary Blumberg, John and Hope Furth Professor of Psychiatric Neuroscience and YCSC Professor of psychiatry, and in the Child Study Center and of radiology and biomedical imaging and director of the Yale Mood Disorders Research Program.

Source: VuMedi

In this blog post, Karyn Bailey, LCSW, offers advice on the value of deep breathing. This is a step-by-step guide to learning a simple but very effective technique to help alleviate stress, for adults and children alike.

Yale researchers propose that brain states and brain waves may be two parts of the same occurrence — and they discuss why that matters.
Source: Yale News

A new survey finds that a large percentage of students don’t feel that they have an adult to turn to at school when they’re troubled. In this article, Dr ZJ Ng of the Education Collaboratory discusses value of emotional support for students.
Source: Edutopia

Upcoming Grand Rounds

YCSC Grand Rounds sessions are typically presented in person in the Cohen Auditorium at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesdays, from September through June, with a live stream available via Zoom.

Apr 2024
23
Tuesday
1:00 PM 2:00 PM
Nii Addy, PhD
May 2024
14
Tuesday
In the Media

March 22, 2024
Yale Child Study Center Assistant Professor Kieran O’Donnell is quoted in this article covering new findings from a study conducted by his team, suggesting that carrying a baby creates some of the same epigenetic patterns on DNA seen in older people.
Source: Nature

March 22, 2024
Working with the John T. Gorman Foundation, Bangor Housing connected with an evidence-based model that has demonstrated positive results around the country – the MOMS (Mental Health Outreach for MotherS) Partnership, which was developed at the Yale Child Study Center in 2011.
Source: JTG Foundation Updates

March 22, 2024
Hilary Blumberg, MD, John and Hope Furth Professor of Psychiatric Neuroscience and Professor of Psychiatry, and in the Child Study Center and of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, and director of the Mood Disorders Research Program at Yale, spoke to WTNH-News 8 about the signs and symptoms of mood disorders.
Source: WTNH-News 8

March 26, 2024
YCSC Clinical Fellow Amanda Calhoun is quoted in this article about the clinical case conference series she has coordinated to spotlight the mental health crisis among Black youth, also aiming to give a voice to those patients and clinicians who experience and witness racist behaviors by mental health clinicians.
Source: APA Psychiatric News

March 28, 2024
YCSC Professor James McPartland is quoted in this article about a study led by Postdoctoral Fellow Jason Griffin, which found that some teens with autism look at faces differently than those without autism.
Source: Tech Explorist

April 1, 2024
YCSC Assistant Professor Kieran O'Donnell is quoted in this New York Post article reporting on the findings of his team's recent study, noting that pregnancy ages a birthing parent by about two years but there’s a way to turn back time.
Source: New York Post

April 8, 2024
Two recent studies finding very similar effects of pregnancy on biological aging are covered in this article, including recently published results from YCSC Assistant Professor Kieran O'Donnell and his team.
Source: Time

April 11, 2024
YCSC Assistant Professor Yann Poncin was interviewed for this segment on WTNH News 8.
Source: WTNH News 8

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