Celebrating Joanna Medina, PhD | Recipient of the Eagles Autism Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship

Congratulations to ASPE trainee Joanna Medina, PhD, for being awarded the Eagles Autism Foundation Post Doctoral Fellowship! This two-year fellowship will support Joanna’s research project, “Bridging pre-clinical and clinical studies of autism via translational biomarker development”.

About 40-80% of autistic children experience sleep abnormalities. This includes delayed sleep onset, shorter sleep duration, multiple and prolonged night awakenings, and daytime tiredness. Additionally, differences in sensory information processing are also commonly observed.

Under the mentorship of ASPE PI Joe Zhou, Joanna hopes to address these quality-of-life concerns by establishing robust and reliable autism biomarkers that provide a framework for testing novel therapeutics for pharmacological efficacy and refinement, with the goal of ultimately expanding treatment options for the community. Additionally, mitigating disturbances in sleep and sensory information processing may serve to improve the quality of daily living for autistic folks.

We look forward to following the impressive science Joanna conducts through this EAF fellowship, and beyond!