Dr. Laurel Gabard-Durnam is the director of PINE Lab and an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University. She received a B.A. in Neurobiology from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital prior to starting PINE Lab. Dr. Gabard-Durnam is a developmental cognitive neuroscientist whose research explores how different environments and neuroplasticity interact to shape brain and behavior development. She is interested in how typical environment-neuroplasticity interactions support healthy development, as well as how adverse environments or atypical neuroplasticity processes in neurodevelopmental disorders impact development. Using this framework, she aims to understand the developmental mechanisms driving healthy, resilient, or maladaptive outcomes across individuals. She works across, and compares, multiple socioemotional domains, including perception, language, and emotion regulation. Dr. Gabard-Durnam’s research program has been supported by funding from The National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Autism Science Foundation.