Deanna Swain
Dr. Deanna Swain is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and a licensed clinical child psychologist specializing in autism spectrum disorder and neurodevelopmental differences across the lifespan. Dr. Swain completed her PhD in Clinical Psychology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and her postdoctoral fellowship at Weill Cornell Medicine. As a clinical researcher, her work focuses on increasing access to evidence-based care for autistic youth and their families. Her research program examines barriers to autism specialty care, intervention outcomes and mechanisms of change, and the development of data systems to advance clinical research and personalized care.
Dr. Swain leads clinical and research initiatives focused on improving the quality, scalability, and accessibility of autism assessment and intervention. She has extensive expertise in gold-standard diagnostic evaluations and in caregiver-mediated, evidence-based interventions. She directs a Research Units in Behavioral Intervention (RUBI) clinic and has led the implementation of electronic data capture systems across clinical and research settings to support clinical decision-making and large-scale research.
Tim Benke
Tim Benke is Ponzio Family Chair in Neurology Research and Professor of Pediatrics, Pharmacology, Neurology and Otolaryngology at University of Colorado School of Medicine. He joined the University of Colorado, School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado (CHCO) in 2002 where he is Research Director of the Neuroscience Institute. He initiated the multi-disciplinary Rett/CDKL5/FOXG1 Clinic in 2011 at CHCO (recognized as a Center of Excellence), where he is the Medical Director.
Dr. Benke was site PI for the NIH funded Natural History Study (NICHD U54 HD061222 Percy, PI) and collaborates in clinical trials and outcome measure development in RTT (NINDS R61NS130216, Marsh/Neul, PD; DOD PR221983, Neul, PI; Acadia NCT04181723; Neurogene, NCT05898620;) and CDKL5 (NINDS- U01NS114312, Benke, PD; Loulou Foundation NCT05373719; Marinus NCT03572933). He is leading the male RTT project funded by IRSF and RMRA (NCT06346106). He oversees the collaborative GRIN variant registry (Emory/Traynelis/Simons).
His translational lab collaboratively studies the molecular impact of GRIN variants (Emory/Traynelis/Simons), the impact of earl-life seizures (NINDS R21 NS101288) and CDKL5 (NINDS R21 NS112770, IFCR) on synaptic physiology and plasticity.
Jenifer Sargent
Clinical research supervisor at Children’s Hospital Colorado with 8+ years of clinical research experience in neurology and rare disease.
Nicole Tartaglia
Nicole Tartaglia, MD, MSCS, is a Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrician and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado. She leads multidisciplinary clinical and research programs focused on autism and related neurodevelopmental conditions, with particular experience in genetically defined populations including Fragile X syndrome and sex chromosome aneuploidy conditions.
Dr. Tartaglia has experience leading multi-site, collaborative research initiatives, including leading an NIH-funded Rare Disease Clinical Research Networks consortium for sex chromosome aneuploidy, and co-leading the CDC-funded Fragile X FORWARD project. Her research integrates clinical phenotyping, developmental trajectories, outcome measure evaluation, and clinical trials to better understand mechanisms underlying neurodiversity in these conditions and to inform targeted interventions.