Catherine E. Lord

Dr. Lord currently serves as Director of the University of Michigan Autism and Communication Disorders Center, Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry, and Pediatrics in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Senior Research Scientist at The Center for Human Growth and Development. She is also the interim Director of the Asperger Institute at the NYU Child Study Center. 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 is a member of the Scientific Advisory and Scientific Review Boards of the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative and also the Chair of 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. Dr. Lord has published over a hundred articles in peer-reviewed journals in addition to numerous books and chapters.

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.