SFARI | Category: News

SFARI Hosts 2026 Investigator Meeting

The Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative held its annual investigator meeting on March 16-18, 2026, in New York City.

A close-up of diverse multiracial men and women group with stacking hands on top of each other, suggestive of a support group.

SFARI To Fund Patient Advocacy Group Conferences and Travel Awards for Scientists

SFARI plans to support 17 meetings organized by patient advocacy groups within the Simons Searchlight community.

Kelsey Martin Wins Kavli Prize in Neuroscience

The Kavli Foundation announced today that Kelsey Martin, the Simons Foundation’s executive vice president of autism and neuroscience, will receive the prestigious Kavli Prize in Neuroscience.

A photo of a boy using the smartphone AI app, BlinkLab, designed to support clinicians in the assessment of autism.

Unbiased Approaches to Quantifying Motor and Other Visible Behaviors in Humans with Autism

On January 22–23, 2026, SFARI held a workshop to explore advanced quantitative phenotyping methods for capturing visible behaviors, including motor phenotypes.

New Ideas: Applications Open for Exploratory Autism Research Grants

Announcing the Recipients of the 2025 Data Analysis Awards

SFARI is funding 16 projects through its 2025 Data Analysis awards. This award is designed to encourage the use of large, publicly available data resources by providing investigators with the support needed to allocate time and personnel toward working in and publishing from these previously collected data.

Simons Searchlight February 2026 Update: New Phenotypic Data Available

The Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) is pleased to announce a new data release from Simons Searchlight aimed at improving the scientific understanding of autism.

Image of the hippocampus was taken with an ultra-widefield high-speed multiphoton laser microscope.

2025 Autism Rat Consortium Meeting Held in New York City

On September 29, 2025, the SFARI Autism Rat Consortium (ARC) held its annual meeting in the Usher Institute of the University of Edinburgh. This year’s event brought together ARC PIs and trainees who specialize in the use of rat models.

An illustration of a person looking at a vase of flowers and a cup of tea.

Mapping Mouse Brains Points to How Autism Can Affect Expectation Updating

A new study finds that mice with variants in autism-associated genes have difficulty flexibly updating their expectations. The mice relied more on frontal brain areas associated with cognition and reasoning rather than sensory-processing brain regions to process prior information about the world. The results provide new insights into the neurobiology of autism.

California Science Center in Los Angeles.

Announcing the Recipients of the Autism and Neuroscience Conferences and Courses Awards

The Simons Foundation’s Autism & Neuroscience division is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2025 Autism and Neuroscience Conferences and Courses Awards. This year the awards provide financial support for scientific conferences or courses that align with the scientific missions of the division’s Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI), Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain (SCGB) and Simons Collaboration on Plasticity and the Aging Brain (SCPAB).