ASD Researchers at UNC

Assistant Professor/Department of Psychiatry and Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, UNC School of Medicine

Mark Shen, Ph.D., is a translational neuroscientist whose research integrates neuroimaging, genetics, and clinical assessment in young children to study the early onset of neurodevelopmental disorders. He is an assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine, with dual appointments at the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities (CIDD) and the Department of Psychiatry. Prior to his research career, he worked for six years doing clinical work as a behavior therapist for children with autism. As a graduate student, Dr. Shen published the first MRI study to longitudinally measure brain growth trajectories in infants who developed autism. As a postdoc, he replicated and extended these findings in a larger, independent study of infants who developed autism.

Dr. Shen was recently awarded an NIH-funded career-development award (K12) to start his own laboratory and support a multidisciplinary research program on the early pathogenesis of neurodevelopmental disorders. His current research objective is to integrate multiple approaches (neuroimaging, genetics, and clinical assessment) to identify early markers for autism, Fragile X syndrome, and Angelman syndrome. Dr. Shen also collaborates with basic scientists to translate neuroimaging findings in children to mechanistic studies in animal models. Dr. Shen is a founding officer of the Early Career Committee of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) and is on the Steering Committee of the Infant Brain Imaging Study (IBIS) Network, an NIH Autism Center of Excellence. Earlier this year, the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) awarded Dr. Shen their Young Investigator Award.