Cognition, Brain and Autism Lab

02/20/2026

Congratulations, Meagan! We are so proud of her incredible dissertation defense. She has been a stellar graduate student in the CBrA lab, and we are overjoyed to see her succeed and move on to the next step of her PhD journey.

11/21/2025

A remarkable testimony from one of our BrainREAD parents!

When her daughter was diagnosed with autism at age four, Maribel refused to accept a list of things she would “never be able to do." Instead, she set out to ...

11/20/2025

The CBrA lab was excited to have several members present and share the lab’s work at the UAB Annual Graduate Research Symposium.

04/28/2025

Program Coordinator, Paula Argueta, was thrilled to attend Jasper's Autism Awareness Walk on Saturday (April 26th) in Jasper, AL!

Paula represented the CBrA lab at our exhibitor’s booth to tell attendees all about the BrainREAD study.

04/28/2025

We were so excited to attend the Autism Support of Alabama Walk for Autism on Saturday (April 26th) in Montgomery, AL!

Program Coordinator Lucas Martin represented the CBrA lab at our exhibitor’s booth to tell walk attendees all about the BrainREAD study.

04/24/2025

We are very proud of our undergraduate researcher, Susan Raj, who presented "Intervention-Related Changes in Cortical Morphology in Autistic Children" at UAB's Thirty-Sixth Annual OST Undergraduate Research Conference. Susan worked closely with researcher Dr. Pinar Demirayak examining changes in cortical thickness as an effect of a reading comprehension intervention. Great work Susan!

02/25/2025

We are very proud of our three researchers who presented their work at the International Neuropsychological Society (INS) meeting this February! Meagan Beckerson (graduate student) presented her poster “The relationship between executive functioning, brain connectivity, and externalizing behaviors in childhood”. McKayla Kurtz (graduate student) presented her poster “The role of the executive control network in social functioning in autism”. Paula Argueta (program coordinator) presented her poster “Traits of depression in autistic children: the role of inhibitory control and social cognition”. Congrats to all three!

02/18/2025

We were very excited to tour the renewed UAB Driving Simulator. The Driving Simulator is now under the UAB School of Engineering. We anticipate new and exciting collaboration!

02/18/2025

CBrA lab members in front of Bartow Arena!

11/21/2024

We were so excited to attend the “Unlocking the Mystery of Developmental Disorders” conference last Friday (Nov 15) in Vestavia Hills, AL!

Program Coordinator Lucas Martin represented the CBrA lab at our exhibitor’s booth to tell other researchers, clinicians, educators, and interested families all about the BrainREAD study.

10/24/2024

We want to congratulate our PhD student McKayla Kurtz on her recent thesis defense! McKayla presented her project “The Role of the Executive Control Network in Social Functioning in Autism” on Oct 17 to the committee. Her thesis utilizes both neuroimaging and behavioral assessment data from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE). We are so proud of her hard work!

09/30/2024

We are very proud of our undergraduate researcher Joseph Kannala and his poster presentation at the Thompson Center Autism Conference! Joseph is an undergraduate researcher from St. Louis University who collaborated with the CBrA lab over the summer on a novel research project. He used data from our lab’s MISLEAD study to assess how higher cognitive functions impact deception detection in neurodiverse young adults. Congrats Joseph!