The Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) invites applications to participate in a series of three workshops aimed at developing a multiyear collaborative effort in quantitative behavioral phenotyping of individuals with autism.
People with autism often show altered behavioral patterns. These differences can vary greatly across individuals and may be invisible to the human eye or difficult to quantify with existing methods. Tracking these behaviors using advanced technologies and analytic pipelines originally developed for animal models holds promise for better understanding autism’s heterogeneity, trajectory and underlying biology.
The planned workshops will bring together autism researchers and experts in quantitative behavior analysis, both in animal models and in humans. Workshop participants will plan strategies to define and quantify motor and other visible phenotypes from video footage in individuals with autism. The workshops will also address analysis of associated audio data, as individuals with autism often exhibit differences in speech, language, prosody and conversational skills. This work will build off learnings from an initial workshop in behavioral phenotyping held in January of this year.
The first workshop will be held over Zoom on September 14 and 15, 2026. The second workshop will be held in person on October 13 and 14, 2026, at the Simons Foundation’s offices in New York City. The third and final workshop will be held in person on February 8 and 9, 2027, also at the Simons Foundation’s offices.
To apply, please submit your biosketch and a one-page statement describing your scientific expertise, how it connects to the scientific vision outlined above and what unique perspectives or contributions you will bring to the discussions. Applicants may include in-text citations. A full bibliography is not required. Applications are due June 15, 2026, at 5 p.m. ET.
Approximately 30 individuals will be selected to participate in the workshop. Applicants selected to participate in the first and second workshops will be notified by August 7, 2026. The final participant list for the third workshop will be determined after the second workshop.
This workshop series is the first step toward developing a funded collaborative effort; however, workshop participation does not guarantee inclusion in a collaborative effort or future funding.
For questions or issues with this application, please contact [email protected]
