Gaab Lab Awarded 5-Year Grant to Continue Longitudinal Dyslexia Research!

We are thrilled to share that our team has been awarded a five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue our longitudinal BabyBOLD study (also known as our “Dyslexia Study”) at the Harvard Graduate School of Education!

This study started in 2010 when our participants were infants. This phase of the project will re-invite them as adolescents, creating the first longitudinal study spanning 12+ years that specifically examines language, reading, and brain development together. Our goal is to understand how early brain, behavior, and brain–behavior co-development shape typical and atypical reading comprehension, a complex skill that is essential for success in school, employment, and mental health. By following children from infancy and capturing multiple developmental time points, we aim to identify the foundations of typical and atypical reading comprehension long before formal schooling begins and to inform earlier preventive and intervention approaches.

You can find a more detailed description of this phase of the study here: https://reporter.nih.gov/search/VIRQLVHYskensHxE10tW1g/project-details/11295654

Congratulations to RA Olivia Baldi on being accepted into the Ph.D. program in School Psychology at UNC Chapel Hill!

We are so excited that after 2.5 years in the Gaab Lab, RA Olivia Baldi is heading off to start her Ph.D. in School Psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill this Fall 2026! Under the supervision of Dr. Casey Calhoun in the School of Education, Olivia’s research will focus on how neural, physiological, and environmental factors interact and influence emotional and behavioral regulation in teens, with a particular focus on peer relationships and social media.

We could not be more proud of Olivia for all of the hard work and dedication it took to get to this point, and we have no doubt that she will excel in this next chapter of her academic career. While we will miss her greatly here in the Gaab Lab, we look forward to seeing where this next chapter of life takes her!

Congratulations Olivia, and Go Tar Heels!

Along with tenure at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), Dr. Gaab recently was recently awarded the title of Silvana and Christopher Pascucci Professorship in Learning Differences!

From HGSE, regarding this award: “The Silvana and Christopher Pascucci Professorship in Learning Differences, held most recently by the late Thomas Hehir, is bestowed upon a faculty member whose work focuses on overcoming barriers related to learning differences and special education and whose interdisciplinary approach to teaching and research results in solutions that impact practice and policy.”

Huge CONGRATULATIONS to our Principal Investigator Nadine Gaab on being promoted to Professor of Education with tenure here at HGSE! We are all so incredibly proud of all of the hard work and dedication it took to get to this position, and we look forward to the bright future of the Gaab Lab!

We are excited to announce our latest publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) exploring the development of brain structures related to reading from infancy to school-age.

Read more about the paper here.

Read the paper here.