New Dartmouth Assistant Professor Focuses on Autism

Chicago native Caroline Robertson, a new assistant professor at Dartmouth College, is beginning her time on campus by emulating a famous Illinois politician’s strategy of knocking on doors to find out what people need.

Through her door knocking and email sending, Robertson aims to bring people together in a Dartmouth Autism Research Initiative both to help advance her research, which primarily focuses on sensory perception in people with autism, and to build awareness about the condition, which is often misunderstood.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimates that one in 59 children has autism. The condition, also known as autism spectrum disorder, can result in a range of social, communication and behavioral challenges, as well as particular abilities in certain areas such as noticing small details in the environment. The particular traits associated with autism manifest differently in each person, Robertson said.

Many questions about autism remain to be answered, from causes (not vaccines, but sometimes genetics) to how to diagnose the condition earlier in a child’s development, and how behaviors relate to differences in the brain, Robertson said.

In order to answer such questions, Robertson and her team aim to follow a strategy in the field, which is “nothing about me without me,” meaning that researchers ought to involve those affected by the condition in their work as much as possible.

“I feel excited to be starting afresh here at Dartmouth because it feels like an opportunity to build a program that has that vision,” she said.

Robertson, who holds a bachelor’s degree in neurobiology and philosophy from Columbia University and a doctorate from the University of Cambridge, comes to Dartmouth following a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.

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