Medical and Science Advisory Committee

In expertise, the members of the Autism Speaks Medical and Science Advisory Committee span the field’s broad range of research. Their work has included advances in behavioral interventions, medicines development and the treatment of autism-related health conditions, as well as advances in our understanding of the genetic and environmental factors that influence autism.

The committee assists Autism Speaks science leadership in reviewing research proposals and provides continual guidance on achieving our scientific mission of improving lives today and accelerating a spectrum of solutions for tomorrow. 

Committee Chair

Herbert Pardes, M.D., executive vice chairman of the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital Board of Trustees

Committee Members

Joseph Buxbaum, Ph.D., director of the Seaver Autism Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Edwin Cook, M.D., director of the Laboratory of Developmental Neuroscience, University of Illinois, Chicago

Joseph Coyle, M.D., professor of psychiatry and neuroscience, Harvard Medical School

Cuong Do, executive vice president, Samsung Global Strategy Group

Daniele Fallin, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Stelios Georgiades, Ph.D., co-director of the McMaster Autism Research Team, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario

Connie Kasari, Ph.D., professor of human development and psychology in the Graduate School of Education and Department of Psychiatry, Semel Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles

Catherine Lord, Ph.D., director of the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain, Weill Cornell Medicine.

Joseph Piven, M.D., director of the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, University of North Carolina.

Stuart Savitz, founder, Law Offices of Stuart M. Savitz, Chicago, Illinois.

Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele, M.D., director, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons