Our Team

Chief of the Division of Developmental Neuroscience at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Fifer’s research interests involve studies of fetal and infant physiological and neurobehavioral responses to environmental challenges during sleep and the effects of prenatal exposures on later neurodevelopment. He has active collaborations with multiple departments at Columbia University and the University of South Dakota, Kings College in London and the Universities of Stellenbosch and University of Cape Town in South Africa. With funding from NIH, the Institute for Developmental Science at Columbia University Medical Center, the Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he and his team are involved in multiple longitudinal birth cohort studies investigating the effects of prenatal adverse exposures, sleep health, autonomic nervous system regulation and subsequent risk for neurodevelopmental disorders including sudden infant death syndrome and autism spectrum disorders.

After completing his PhD in computational biology in 2007 at the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine, he led the analysis of the first personal genome produced by next-generation sequencing (that of Dr. James D. Watson). In 2008, he joined Columbia University as a postdoctoral fellow, working in computational genomics and genetics of drug adverse reactions, and then joined the faculty in July 2011. Dr. Shen is interested in developing and applying computational methods to study human genetics and diseases.

His lab uses a combination of computational and experimental methods to study RNA regulatory networks in the nervous system. In particular, he is interested in characterizing the regulatory networks that contribute to the function during neurodevelopment and in neuronal cell types, and how these networks can be compromised in certain pathologic contexts, such as neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases. His lab also works on targeting RNA regulation to develop precision genetic medicine.

Dr. Lebowitz is a psychologist who studies how people think about the causes of behavior and health outcomes, and how this causal thinking shapes attitudes, beliefs, and expectations. He is particularly interested in the implications of using genetics and other aspects of biology to explain why people behave the way they do or develop certain mental and physical health conditions.

Dr. Muhle earned her medical and graduate degrees from the Medical Scientist Training Program at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and completed her adult psychiatry residency and child & adolescent fellowship training within the Solnit Integrated Adult and Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Research Training Program at the Yale University Child Study Center. Dr. Muhle’s scientific research aims to uncover molecular genetic pathways that increase risk for neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, by utilizing high-throughput genomics methods in mouse and human model systems to examine the effects of disruptions of implicated risk genes. Dr. Muhle is a board-certified general and child & adolescent psychiatrist, with a clinical focus on people who are on the autism spectrum.

Dr. Azad graduated with her B.A. in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and received her Ph.D. in School Psychology from the University of California, Riverside. She completed her pre-doctoral internship at The School at Columbia University. Dr. Azad’s research focuses on using the principles of implementation science to optimize service delivery across systems of care. She is the developer of Partners in School, a multifaceted, multilevel implementation package for aligning evidence-based practices across home and school for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Additional areas of expertise include community-partnered research, mixed methods, and issues related to equity in service provision.

Jessica received her B.A. in Neuroscience and Sociology from Barnard College in 2022, where she was part of the COVID-19 Mother Baby Outcome (COMBO) study with Dr. Dani Dumitriu and developed adaptations of infant developmental assessments to be conducted remotely. She wrote her senior thesis on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on infant neurodevelopment. As part of ACE, she coordinates and conducts studies for Project 3, learning to carry out eye-tracking, EEG, and auditory tests. In addition, she assists in EEG collection for Natural History Studies of rare genetic disorders. She is also a Masters student in Sociology at Columbia University, where she carries out research pertaining to the role of rare disease organizations in scientific knowledge production.