Jason Wolff

Jason Wolff is the William Harris Professor in Child Development and a Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota, where he also serves as Director of Graduate Studies. His work focuses on optimizing support for young children with autism and related developmental disabilities.

Education:

• PhD, University of Minnesota
• BA, University of Chicago

Research Interests:

Dr. Wolff’s research integrates brain, behavior, and intervention to understand and ameliorate sensory features and restricted/repetitive behaviors during the first years of life. His lab pursues two interrelated goals: (1) characterizing behavioral and brain development in children with autism and related disabilities, and (2) translating these insights into novel, optimally-timed early interventions that improve quality of life.

Publication trends from 2014–2023 reveal a consistent focus on longitudinal neuroimaging of infants and toddlers at high risk for autism, quantitative assessment of repetitive behaviors, and early biomarker discovery to predict later clinical outcomes. Collectively, these studies span neurodevelopmental genetics (e.g., fragile X syndrome), neuroanatomical change (corpus callosum, white matter circuitry), and the emergence of sensory and behavioral phenotypes.

Scientific Awards:
No specific awards are listed in the provided text.

Advising & Grants:
While individual students are not named, Dr. Wolff directs graduate studies in Educational Psychology and leads a multidisciplinary lab that collaborates with the IBIS Network and other longitudinal cohort studies investigating the developmental origins of autism.

Labs & Teams:
He heads a research lab within the Department of Educational Psychology that conducts longitudinal neuroimaging and behavioral studies, partnering with national consortia to recruit infant siblings of children with autism and track neurodevelopmental trajectories from 6 months of age onward.