Steering Committee Members
Ilan Dinstein (PhD) - Center's Director
Ilan Dinstein is a faculty member of Psychology and Cognitive & Brain Sciences at BGU. Ilan and his students use neuroimaging techniques including MRI and EEG to better understand brain function and structure during early autism development, with a strong focus on 1-4 years old toddlers. Projects include the acquisition of overnight EEG recordings and MRI scans from toddlers during natural sleep. For additional information see Ilan's personal page.
Idan Menashe (PhD) - Scientific Director
Idan Menashe is a faculty member in the Public Health Department at BGU. Idan and his students use integrated epidemiological, statistical, and bioinformatics approaches to study the effects of genetic and non-genetic risk factors contributing to ASD etiology. Projects include a focus on revealing ASD prevalence, exposure to risk factors, and genetic variations in the Bedouin population and assessment of the effect of prenatal air pollution on the risk of ASD in Israel. For more information see Idan's personal website.
Gal Meiri (MD) - Steering Committee
Gal Meiri is the Director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Unit at Soroka Medical Center and a faculty member of the BGU Medical School. Together with his staff, Gal diagnoses approximately 150 new autism cases annually and performs follow-up assessments of the children until the age of 8. Gal studies the prevalence of autism in the Bedouin community with a focus on understanding cross-cultural social, genetic, and environmental risk factors. In addition Gal has initiated a new program to implement MCHAT screening tools in the Negev
Tamar Kolodny (PhD) - Steering Committee
Dr. Tamar Kolodny, joined the Department of Psychology at BGU as a faculty member and serves as a member of the ANCAN board of directors.
Tamar is a cognitive psychologist who is studying autism and closely related developmental disorders (e.g., ADHD) using neuroimaging, behavioral, and psychophysics techniques. Tamar completed an outstanding PhD in Tel Aviv University where she studied ADHD in the lab of Prof. Lilach Shalev-Mevorach and then an exceptional postdoc in Washington University, Seattle, with Prof. Scott Murray, where she studied perception in Autism. Her future work at BGU will focus on sensory function and development with the goal of unravelling distinct and overlapping mechanisms across children with autism, ADHD, and both disorders.