Andari Lab: Autism & Social Affective Neuroscience (ASAN)

Dr. Elissar Andari, Ph.D. (she/her)

Assistant Professor

Email: elissar.andari@utoledo.edu
Office: Ruppert Health Center – 1150
Phone Number: 419.383.5227

Educational Background:

• Post-Doctoral fellow of Social Neuroscience at Emory University and at the Yerkes National Primate
• Research Center and at the Center for Translational Social Neuroscience
• Ph.D. in Neuroscience and Physiology from Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, France
• M.S. in Neuroscience and Physiology from Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 in Lyon, France
• M.S. Neuropsychology and Cognitive Science from Université Lumiere Lyon 2 in Lyon, France
• B.S. in Psychomotor Therapy at the University Saint-Joseph in Beirut, Lebanon

Research Interests:

• Implementing a new initiative in autism research which is adding Deep Phenotyping Rigor for any research related to autism. Conducting a multidisciplinary (using behavioral, physiological, neuroimaging approaches) and multimodal (social cognition, empathy, negative valence, and other) investigation of families touched by autism. Using machine learning approaches to predict ASD diagnosis and to come up with biologically relevant subtypes of ASD.
• Precision medicine approach to study the role of different treatments that can be effective for specific subtypes of ASD.
• Studying the nature of deficit in women of Autism in addition to men with Autism.
• Studying the neural correlates of affiliative behaviors.
• Uncovering new biomarkers to predict early symptoms of ASD.
• Conducting translational research in prairie voles to better understand the neural mechanisms of social learning and to find optimal treatment that can help with anxiety reduction and social learning in autism.

Gwen Hoffman (she/her)

Research Assistant/Coordinator

Email: gwen.hoffman@utoledo.edu 

Education Background:

BS in Neuroscience and Psychology from University of Michigan

Research Interests:

Integration of research with clinical work and the development of  targeted screening, assessment, and treatment approaches.

Gabby “Chris” Vento (she/her)

Ph.D. Candidate, Biomedical Sciences – Bioinformatics;
Team Leader for Computational Biology

Email: christopher.vento@rockets.utoledo.edu

Education Background:

MS in Biology from Bowling Green State University (BGSU),
Graduate Certificate in Bioinformatics from BGSU/UToledo, BS in Neuroscience from BGSU

Research Interests:

Multimodal models of Autism Spectrum Disorder Subtypes using Multiomics approaches. I use modernized machine learning approaches to predict ASD diagnosis and to generate putative ASD subytpes that are biologically relevant.

Daniella Gamboa Pabon (she/her)

Ph.D. Candidate, Biomedical Sciences – Neuroscience

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