Mayada Elsabbagh, PhD
Mayada Elsabbagh, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at Ï㽶ÊÓƵ’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, where she has been a faculty member since 2011. She is also an Associate Member of the School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, a role she has held since 2014. Dr. Elsabbagh’s research is centered on neurodevelopment, particularly autism, where she has contributed to the discovery of early brain markers that can precede behavioural signs of the condition.
As the Principal Investigator of the Resilience and Neurodevelopment Laboratory at The Neuro, Dr. Elsabbagh leads research aimed at uncovering the root causes of autism and understanding its developmental pathways. Her work bridges integrated clinical research with practical outcomes, aiming to accelerate the impact of scientific findings on community health and well-being.
Dr. Elsabbagh plays a key role in fostering collaboration across research and care networks. As Director of the , she supports several joint initiatives, including , , and the . Through these and other efforts, she brings together researchers, clinicians, and autistic individuals to improve quality of life for autistic people and individuals with other neurodevelopmental conditions. From 2016 to 2022, she served as the Associate Director of Clinical Research at the Azrieli Centre for Autism Research (ACAR), where she helped shape its clinical research programs.
Dr. Elsabbagh is also committed to community engagement and global outreach, with a focus on supporting evidence-based practices and capacity building in underserved groups in Canada and in low- and middle-income countries. Her work has earned recognition through awards such as the Neville Butler Memorial Prize and the British Psychological Society Neil O’Conner Prize, underscoring the societal impact of her research.
O’Reilly C, Larson E, Richards JE, Elsabbagh M. (2020) Structural templates for imaging EEG cortical sources in infants. Neuro Image 227:117682.
van Noordt SJR, Desjardins J, Huberty S, Abou-Abbas L, Webb SJ, Levin A, Segalowitz SJ, Evans A, The BASIS Team, Elsabbagh M. (2020) EEG-IP: An International Infant EEG Data Integration Platform for the Study of Risk and Resilience in Autism and Related Conditions. Mol Med 26:40.
Elsabbagh M. (2020) Linking risk factors and outcomes in autism spectrum disorder: is there evidence for resilience? BMJ 368:l6880.
Tesfaye R, Courchesne V, Yusuf A, Savion-Lemieux T, Singh I, Shikako-Thomas K, Mirenda P, Waddell C, Smith IM, Nicholas D, Szatmari, P, Bennett T, Duku E, Georgiades S, Kerns C, Vaillancourt T, Zaidman-Zait A, Zwaigenbaum L, Elsabbagh M. (2019) Assuming ability of youth with autism: Synthesis of methods capturing the first-person perspectives of children and youth with disabilities. Autism 23: 1882-1886.
Lord C, Elsabbagh M, Baird G, Veenstra-Vanderweele J. (2018) Autism spectrum disorder. Lancet 392(10146):508-520