Catherine Lord, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor, University of California, Los Angeles

SFARI Investigator, SFARI Scientific Advisory Board, SFARI Scientific Review Board, SPARK Scientific Advisory Board Website

Catherine Lord is the George Tarjan Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Education at the Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior in the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

She is a practicing clinical psychologist whose primary focus is autism and related disorders across the lifespan from toddlers through adulthood. Her research and clinical work have involved the development of diagnostic instruments that describe individual profiles of skills and weaknesses and carrying out longitudinal studies from age 15 months up to 26 years with the goal of identifying protective and risk factors that influence milestones of progress over the years.

She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and a fellow of the American Association of Arts and Sciences.

Funded Projects

The initial standardization of the Brief Observation of Symptoms of Autism (BOSA)

Awarded: 2020
Award Type: Director

Evaluating two newly developed treatment outcome measures (BOSCC and ELSA) in the context of an ASD behavioral intervention trial

Awarded: 2019
Award Type: Targeted: Novel Outcome Measures for ASD Clinical Trials

Behavioral effects of fever and other illnesses on young children with autism

Awarded: 2016
Award Type: Research

SFARI Funded Publications

Extending the usefulness of the brief observation of social communication change (BOSCC): Validating the phrase speech and young fluent version. Byrne K., Sterrett K., Holbrook A., Kim S. H., Grzadzinski R., Lord C.

The brief observation of symptoms of autism (BOSA): Development of a new adapted assessment measure for remote telehealth administration through COVID-19 and beyond. Dow D., Holbrook A., Toolan C., McDonald N., Sterrett K., Rosen N., Kim S. H., Lord C.

Research Highlight

Genomic architecture of autism from comprehensive whole-genome sequence annotation. Trost B., Thiruvahindrapuram B., Chan A.J.S., Engchuan W., Higginbotham E.J., Howe J.L., Loureiro L.O., Reuter M.S., Roshandel D., Whitney J., Zarrei M., Bookman M., Somerville C., Shaath R., Abdi M., Aliyev E., Patel R.V., Nalpathamkalam T., Pellecchia G., Hamdan O., Kaur G., Wang Z., MacDonald J.R., Wei J., Sung W.W.L., Lamoureux S., Hoang N., Selvanayagam T., Deflaux N., Geng M., Ghaffari S., Bates J., Young E.J., Ding Q., Shum C., D'Abate L., Bradley C.A., Rutherford A., Aguda V., Apresto B., Chen N., Desai S., Du X., Fong M.L.Y., Pullenayegum S., Samler K., Wang T., Ho K., Paton T., Pereira S.L., Herbrick J.-A., Wintle R.F., Fuerth J., Noppornpitak J., Ward H., Magee P., Al Baz A., Kajendirarajah U., Kapadia S., Vlasblom J., Valluri M., Green J., Seifer V., Quirbach M., Rennie O., Kelley E., Masjedi N., Lord C., Szego M.J., Zawati M.H., Lang M., Strug L.J., Marshall C.R., Costain G., Calli K., Iaboni A., Yusuf A., Ambrozewicz P., Gallagher L., Amaral D., Brian J., Elsabbagh M., Georgiades S., Messinger D.S., Ozonoff S., Sebat J., Sjaarda C.P., Smith I.M., Szatmari P., Zwaigenbaum L., Kushki A., Frazier T., Vorstman J.A.S., Fakhro K.A., Fernandez B.A., Lewis M.E.S., Weksberg R., Fiume M., Yuen R.K.C., Anagnostou E., Sondheimer N., Glazer D., Hartley D.M., Scherer S. W.