Free webinar at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time (US), December 2, 2026

Dr. Bradley Ferguson, PhD, a 2024 research grant recipient, will share emerging research on the interaction of GI symptoms and behavior in autism.

About the speaker:

Brad Ferguson, PhD, is an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of Missouri. He is primarily engaged in research in co-occurring conditions, especially gastrointestinal symptoms, anxiety, and the stress response in people with autism spectrum disorder. Dr. Ferguson is also involved in multiple clinical trials in autism. He employs a wide range of methodologies in his research (e.g., heart rate variability, skin conductance, MRI/fMRI, ELISA, wearables, questionnaires) and enjoys collaborating with interdisciplinary colleagues.

Free webinar at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time (US), July 29, 2026

Harland Winter, MD, will discuss his research on gastrointestinal conditions in individuals with autism. Dr. Winter is an active investigator and educator in the fields of pediatric AIDS, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and inflammatory bowel disease, and a member of ARI’s Board of Directors.

About the speaker:

Dr. Harland Winter, M.D., is a pediatric gastroenterologist in Boston, Massachusetts. He is affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Newton-Wellesley Hospital. Dr. Winter is the Director of the Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. He is an internationally regarded physician, and accomplished researcher, and professor having authored numerous published research and books on subjects related to IBD. Learn more about Dr. Winter.

Free webinar at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time (US), May 27, 2026

Dr. Daniel Vogt, Ph.D., will discuss his current research on monogenic syndromes and what they can tell us about the underlying causes of autism.

About the speaker:

Dr. Daniel Vogt, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the College of Human Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics and Human Development. Dr. Vogt’s lab is investigating the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying autism. The lab is particularly interested in understanding how genes implicated in autism are functioning in the brain and how mutations in these genes lead to symptoms of autism and related conditions. One hypothesis is that some characteristics of autism are caused by an imbalance in neuronal excitation and inhibition. To this end, Dr. Vogt’s lab is focusing on understanding how inhibitory neurons develop and function. In addition, the lab seeks to understand how mutations discovered in autism genes alter their function.

Dr. Vogt’s research has elucidated how key developmental genes influence inhibitory neuron development. In particular, his research was important in uncovering how the gene, Lhx6, a transcription factor required for inhibitory neuron development, controls the cell fate of inhibitory neurons derived from the median ganglionic eminence (MGE) (Neuron, 2014). Dr. Vogt also developed an in vivo approach to assess the impact that human mutations discovered in autism patients have on gene function. This approach was tested with the autism candidate gene, PTEN, and demonstrated that mutations in PTEN resulted in defects in inhibitory neuron development (Cell Reports. 2015). The lab’s goal is to continue to screen mutations in genes implicated in autism to uncover both common and unique symptoms that are caused by genes. Finally, the lab seeks to combine the knowledge gained from the screening of mutations and the knowledge from studying individual genes to uncover new insights into inhibitory neuron development.

Dr. Vogt is also a 2019 ARI grant recipient.

Free webinar at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time (US), May 20, 2026

Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown, Ph.D., will discuss her research on gut microbiota in individuals with autism who have gastrointestinal (GI) problems. She will share updates on what we know about human microbiomes, how they interact with our bodies, and the potential they hold for treating autism symptoms.

About the speaker:

Dr. Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown is an Associate Professor at the School of Sustainable Engineering and The Built Environment and the Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology at Arizona State University. She joined the SSEBE faculty in 2007. She has a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Georgia Tech. She was awarded an NSF CAREER award and selected as one of 40 under 40 leaders in Phoenix, AZ. Funding for her research has come from many federal agencies ,including NIH, DoE, DoD, and NSF. She pioneers research on gut microbiome and autism and is the author of 3 patents and more than 90 peer-reviewed publications.
Dr. Krajmalnik-Brown specializes in molecular microbial ecology for bioremediation, the use of microbial systems for bioenergy production, and the human intestinal microbial ecology and its relationship to obesity, bariatric surgery, and autism.

Free webinar at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time (US), May 13, 2026

Recent data support a model in which altered zinc biology may act as a modifiable risk factor within a gene–environment interaction framework in Autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Disrupted zinc homeostasis may be a key mechanistic contributor to ASD pathophysiology, and it is mimicked to some extent by other risk factors. This talk critically evaluates the hypothesis that ASD reflects a developmental zinc deficiency at the molecular and synaptic levels. The presentation will integrate molecular, genetic, nutritional, and translational evidence and address inconsistencies and methodological limitations in the field.

About the speaker:

Dr. Andreas Grabrucker received his MSc in Biology, majoring in Genetics, from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany, in 2005. He then earned his PhD in Molecular Medicine from Ulm University, Germany, in 2009. Following this, he continued his research at the Stanford University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the United States. In 2011, he returned to Germany to serve as an Assistant Professor and Executive Director of the Neurocenter at Ulm University.

By 2017, he joined the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Limerick as an Associate Professor. Since 2020, he has also held the position of Lead of the Bio Materials Research Cluster at the Bernal Institute, and since 2024, he has been a Professor in the same department. In 2019, Dr. Grabrucker was awarded a guest professorship at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy.

Since 2009, he has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and more than 14 book chapters, accumulating over 5000 citations. Notably, he is the author of the first textbook detailing the role of biometals in Autism Spectrum Disorders. His research focuses on translational neuroscience, where he develops model systems to understand the processes of cell, tissue, and organ development and function. He also investigates the effects of altered trace metal biology and works on developing nanocarriers for targeted drug and metal delivery into the brain.

Dr. Grabrucker is a 2022 ARI Research Grant recipient.

Free webinar at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time (US), April 22, 2026

Tune in to hear about the Columbia University COVID-19 Mother Baby Outcomes Initiative (COMBO), which resulted in the first report demonstrating that birth during the COVID-19 pandemic, but not prenatal exposure to maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection, was associated with infant neurodevelopment.

About the speaker:

Dr. Morgan Firestein is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Child Health Institute of NJ, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. She obtained her B.A. in psychology from Columbia University in 2013. She received her Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University in 2019 in the lab of Dr. Frances Champagne, where she examined the role of the placenta in regulating fetal exposure to maternal sex steroid hormones and neurodevelopmental consequences of fetal exposure to aberrant levels of maternal hormones. Dr. Firestein completed her postdoctoral training in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center, during which time she investigated the relationship between extracellular vesicles of maternal, fetal, and placental origin and child neurobehavioral outcomes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Firestein was also a key contributor to the Columbia University COVID-19 Mother Baby Outcomes Initiative (COMBO), which resulted in the first report demonstrating that birth during the COVID-19 pandemic, but not prenatal exposure to maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection, was associated with infant neurodevelopment. Dr. Firestein previously served as the Founding Director of the Columbia University Medical Center PeriNatal BioBank (PNBB). Dr. Firestein joined the faculty of the Child Health Institute of NJ in September 2025..

Free webinar at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time (US), April 15, 2026

Sustained potential (SP) is a neural response to periodic auditory stimuli registered with EEG 40Hz Auditory Steady-State Response. The talk addresses the potential to define different language subgroups in autism and to use this biomarker in clinical trials.

About the speaker:

Dr. Vardan Arutiunian, PhD, is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Azrieli Research Center in Sainte-Justine Mother and Child University Hospital Center (CHU Sainte-Justine), University of Montreal in Sarah Lippe’s Lab (Montreal, QC, Canada). He received his PhD degree in Linguistics from the Center for Language and Brain (HSE University, Moscow, Russia) in the field of language and communication in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and completed a postdoctoral training (2022–2025) in clinical electroencephalography at Seattle Children’s Research Institute, in Sara Jane Webb’s Lab (Seattle, WA, USA).

In his research, Dr. Vardan Arutiunian uses multiple approaches and methods, such as behavioral assessment, genetic approaches (polymorphism, genome-wide copy number variation), and neurobiological methods (e.g., magnetoencephalography, electroencephalography, brain morphometry) to investigate a variability of language skills as well as structural and functional brain mechanisms of language impairment in children with ASD.

Dr. Vardan Arutiunian’s current studies combine genetic, neuroimaging, and behavioral approaches to understand the biological basis of language in autistic individuals and their first-degree relatives. His studies also address the biomarkers of language impairments in ASD and the presence of these biomarkers in clinical trials. Furthermore, his research aims to identify the early neural markers of language impairments in infants at risk for developing ASD and to reveal the validity of these neural markers to predict long-term language outcome in children who will later be diagnosed with ASD.

Dr. Vardan Arutiunian received a number of research and teaching awards from several organizations in Russia, European Union, and the United States. He presented the main results of his studies in Russia, Germany, France, Italy, Singapore, Canada, United Arab Emirates, and the United States of America. Dr. Arutiunian, PhD, is a 2024 ARI Research Grantee.

Free webinar at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time (US), April 1, 2026

Learn about evidence-based, effective nutritional strategies to manage constipation.

About the speaker:

Kelly Barnhill, MBA, CN, CCN, is the Director of the Nutrition Clinic at The Johnson Center for Child Health and Development. She is a Certified Clinical Nutritionist with over a decade of experience working with nutrition in children with autism and related disorders. At the Johnson Center, she directs a team of dieticians and nutritionists that has served over 3000 children through this practice.

In addition to her clinical practice, Kelly also serves as the Johnson Center Clinical Care Director, overseeing management and implementation of multidisciplinary care across the practices within the organization. In 2008, Kelly accepted the position of Nutrition Coordinator for the Autism Research Institute. In this role, she designs and manages curriculum and training for hundreds of nutrition practitioners each year, as well as providing direct training for thousands of parents. Kelly is a sought-after presenter, speaking at several national and international conferences each year.

Her studies and work at JCCHD are the culmination of many years’ effort and expertise, with the last several years devoted to understanding the biological underpinnings of the disorder we know as autism. Her work has raised awareness of the need for these services for children with autism and related disorders. Kelly is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.

Ms. Barnhill also sits on ARI’s Board of Directors and Scientific Advisory Board.