Recapping the 2025 Annual Research Symposium!

This year, the BAAC hosted its 2025 Annual Research Symposium on Friday, February 28th, 2025 at 1070 Arastradero at Stanford Research Park. This year's theme is "Building Bridges To achieve Personalized Supports in Autism" and we had over 90 attendees, including researchers, community members, and trainees from all over the Bay Area! We had 24 posters presented, 6 oral presentations, and breakout discussions to advance the engagement of autism research!

Dr. Lawrence Fung (BAAC President) began the symposium with opening remarks and welcomed Dr. Karen Parker (Stanford) as the keynote speaker for this year.

Dr. Parker gave her talk on "A Translational Approach to Detecting and Treating Autism," presenting research on animal models and their translation to autism treatments.

Dr. Nicole Sparapani (UC Davis) gave her talk on "Developmental Learning Profiles, Sociocultural Influences, and Autism Diagnostic Screening in a Neurodiverse Sample of Students within Inclusive Educational Settings." Dr. Grace Gengoux (Stanford) and Dr. John Hegarty (Stanford) presented on their current work in"Pivotal Response Treatment: Clinical and Neuroimaging Profiles of Treatment Response from a Randomized Controlled Trial."

At noon, students and trainees of all levels presented their posters during our poster sessions. Symposium attendees checked out the 24 posters on display, enjoyed lunch, and a panel of faculty judges scored presenters to select two best poster awards this year. Congratulations to the two best posters: Presley Pham on "Autism genes implicate cortical and cerebellar neurons"and Grace Lily on "Fine Motor Dexterity Associated with Vocal and Facial Affect Production in Autistic Youth."

 In the afternoon, we heard from Dr. Carly Demopoulos (UCSF) on "New Insights Into Mechanisms of Speech Impairment in Autism." We also had Dan Feldman (UC Berkeley) talk about "Mouse Models to Understand the Neural Basis for Sensory Processing Differences in Severe Syndromic Forms of Autism."

Six selected trainees gave an oral presentation on their research and a diversity of topics were covered!

• Luke Grosvenor (Kaiser) - Sex and gestational timing influence associations between prenatal glucose intolerance and neurodevelopmental disorders. 

• Nathan Boone (UCSF) - Autism SNP-Based Heritability and Polygenic Risk: Investigating a Model of Greater Variance Among Males than Females. 

• Jo Ann Yon Hernandez (UC Davis) - Adaptive Functioning Across Contexts: A Comparison of Parent and Self-Reported Ratings in Autistic and Non-Autistic Youth.

• Yu Jie (Emily) Hsiao (Stanford) - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Autistic Chinese American Adolescents: A Primer for Mental Health Providers. 

• Katrina Wong (UCSF) - Differences in Basic Auditory Processing and Expressive Language in Autistic Youth with and without History of Late Talking. 

• Rianne Misquita (Saint Mary's College) - Supporting Autistic Children & Parents in Bay Area Schools. 

We finished our day off with five breakout sessions lead by researchers and scientists. The goal of breakout discussions are to fine-tune and align research priorities meaningful to multiple stakeholder groups; determine what mutually beneficial topics will be included in the quarterly meetings/webinars; and formulate collaborative opportunities between researcher. After these breakout discussions, everyone came back together to share what they had discussed.

It was wonderful to have Bay Area autism researchers get together and share their research. We hope to see everyone again next year!