PhD
Research Assistant Professor
Location:
Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities
Education and Training:
BS, Psychology, University of Florida
MA, Experimental Psychology, Florida Atlantic University
PhD, Psychology, Florida International University
NIH T32 Post-doctoral Fellowship in Neurodevelopmental Disorders, UNC School of Medicine
Research:
Dr. Garic is a Research Assistant Professor at the UNC School of Medicine, with appointments in the Department of Psychiatry and Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities (CIDD). Her work is centered examining the biological processes that contribute to the clinical manifestations of early onset neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) during infancy and childhood.
Dr. Garic currently works on multiple NIH-funded studies that investigate the brain and behavioral development of infants with Down Syndrome (DS), family history of autism, infants with Fragile X syndrome (FXS), and infants with Angelman Syndrome (AS). All four etiologically-distinct disorders have been implicated to have cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) abnormalities later in development, but very little is known about the clinical impact of CSF dynamics during infancy, when the brain is most malleable, and intervention may have the greatest impact. In September 2022, Dr. Garic received a 5-year NICHD Career Development Award to pursue 1) examining trajectories of CSF physiology across the first two years of life in Down Syndrome and related NDDs, and 2) the associations between CSF dynamics and neural and clinical outcomes.
