Meet Our Graduate Students

Colleen Harker

Colleen is a child clinical psychology graduate student at UW. She has been working in the READi Lab for three years. She is originally from the East Coast, where she worked at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Center for Autism Research on a research study in the Philadelphia School District. Colleen first became interested in working with individuals with ASD after many special volunteer experiences in high school. She is interested in researching the best ways to build community capacity to implement evidence-based interventions for individuals with ASD and their families.

If she could have one super power, it would be... "MINDREADING!"

Sarah Edmunds

Sarah is a child clinical psychology graduate student at UW working primarily with Dr. Wendy Stone and the READi Lab. Originally, Sarah is from Greensboro, North Carolina. She has always loved working with children, and has discovered that she particularly loves doing research that will help children. Doing research on autism fascinates her because children with ASD are each so different from one another; she has always been interested in what might predict those differences. Sarah is dedicated to working toward a future in which each child with ASD receives intervention that is specialized for their unique challenges and strengths. In the future, she would like to continue doing research, work with children with ASD as a clinician, and hopefully be a professor. Sarah loves Seattle’s proximity to nature (e.g. she can go to Discovery Park in 20 minutes, the Cascades in an hour, and the Olympic peninsula in half a day). An interesting fact about Sarah is that she can wiggle her ears!

If she could have one super power, it would be... "flying. As a kid, I was always flying in my dreams; I would literally swim through the air!"

Elizabeth (Lizzy) Karp

Lizzy is a graduate student in the child clinical psychology program at UW. Originally from Los Angeles, she became interested in working with children with ASD and their families after volunteering at UCLA's Center for Autism Research and Treatment. While at UCLA, Lizzy had the opportunity to work as an interventionist with young children and their parents, teaching joint attention and communication skills. Lizzy plans to continue working with children with ASD and their parents and is interested in researching barriers to treatments that families may encounter and early intervention services.

If she could have one super power, it would be... "the ability to fly, because that sounds amazing!"

Brandon Duffy

(Summer Medical Student Intern)

Brandon is a medical student at the University of Washington and excited to join the READI lab for a summer research project examining associative learning in young infants. He grew up in the Seattle area and received his B.S. in Biology from Northwest University. Brandon’s interests in medicine are widespread and include a number of pediatric issues. He is looking forward to exploring how the brain develops and learns in the early years of life and the implications that this might have in working with children with Autism and other developmental challenges. Brandon enjoys the outdoors, playing and coaching basketball, and experiencing new cultures.

If he could have one super power, it would be... "Traffic evasion!"