Jeanne Townsend

Jeanne provides scientific guidance to the BrainLeap team and oversees data analysis. She is a Professor in the Department of Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego where she directs the Research on Autism and Development Lab. She is a Neuropsychologist and Cognitive Neuroscientist whose research focus is on the identification of the brain bases of cognition. She is especially interested in attentional processes.

Jeanne has studied selective and shifting attention and the underlying brain networks in both typical and atypical development for more than two decades, and has received NIH funding to conduct large studies of attentional function in autism, other developmental disorders and healthy aging. Her previous work has identified deficits in visual attention in autism including delayed attention disengagement, orienting and shifting and a severely restricted attentional field. Most recently, Jeanne and her colleagues have begun to incorporate innovative technology into their research and are developing new approaches to translate their research into effective interventions.