Barry M. Lester, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychiatry & Human Behavior and Pediatrics and Director of the Brown Center for the Study of Children at Risk at the Brown Alpert Medical School and Women & Infants Hospital. The Brown Center also includes the Center for Children and Families at Women & Infants Hospital. The Centers provide research and clinical services for infants at risk and their families as well as research and clinical training. Dr. Lester's research has been federally funded throughout his career. He has been heavily involved in the NIH peer review process serving on NIH study sections, the NIH National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse, the NIH Director's Pioneer Award Program and the College of the Center for Scientific Review. He is past president of the International Association for Infant Mental Health and the author of more than 250 peer reviewed publications and 100 chapters and books.

Stephen J. Sheinkopf is an associate professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Dr. Sheinkopf works as both a clinician and a researcher with expertise is the area of autism and developmental disabilities. Dr. Sheinkopf’s clinical service is focused on the early diagnosis and clinical management of autism. His primary research interests include the identification of very early signs of autism in infancy, the development of social communication abilities in young children with autism, and neurodevelopmental outcomes in children exposed to drugs prenatally.  Dr. Sheinkopf is co-director of the Rhode Island Consortium for Autism Research and Treatment and co-leader of the autism research initiative in the Hassenfeld Child Health Innovation Institute at the Brown School of Public Health. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Miami.