The NYU Child Study Center is pleased to announce that effective immediately Catherine Lord, Ph.D., has been appointed interim Director of the recently established Asperger Institute. Dr. Lord will continue as Senior Research Scientist at The Center for Human Growth and Development, Director of the University of Michigan Autism and Communication Disorders Center, and Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry, and Pediatrics in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Dr. Lord is a clinical child psychologist who is world renowned for her longitudinal studies of children with autism and for taking the lead in developing the autism diagnostic instruments used in both practice and in research worldwide. The Autism Diagnostic Interview – Revised, and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule have been critically important in providing standardized methods for research on the genetics and neurobiology of autism because they provide psychometrically valid and reliable tools for identifying and quantifying the behaviors that define autism. Dr. Lord collaborates with colleagues around the world on the molecular genetics, pathophysiology, and phenomenology of Autistic Spectrum Disorders.

Dr. Lord received her Ph.D. in psychology and social relations from Harvard University. She has worked at the University of North Carolina, University of Minnesota, University of Alberta, the London Medical Research Council Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Unit, Harvard University (Children's Hospital) and University of Chicago. Dr. Lord has published over a hundred articles in peer-reviewed journals in addition to numerous books and chapters.

Dr. Lord is Chair of the Board of Directors for the Simons Foundation and also the Early Intervention in Autism Committee at the National Academy of Science. She received the Irving B. Harris Early Childhood Lecture Award in 2004 and was a Finalist for the New York University Child Study Center Scientific Achievement Award in 2005.

As the interim Director of the Asperger Institute at the NYU Child Study Center, Dr. Lord will provide strategic direction and oversight of the Institute, with goals of improving diagnosis and treatments, developing clinical and education models for children and adolescents with Asperger Syndrome, and establishing a research program.