McKenna Murphy

Autism Spectrum Disorder, gender differences and masking in ASD, Broad Autism Phenotype (BAP)

I am a second-year master’s student working in Dr. Allison Jack’s autism research lab. I graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.S. in Psychology from James Madison University in May 2024. Before graduate school, I served as a research assistant in the College Student Success Lab at JMU, which focused on the qualitative experiences of first-year students transitioning into their first year of college. My primary research interests lie in gender differences across the autism spectrum, and how different symptom presentations and masking of symptoms contribute to later autism diagnosis in females or other gender minorities. Additionally, I am interested in exploring elevated autistic-like traits in biological family members of those diagnosed with autism, or the Broad Autism Phenotype (BAP), and particularly how parental BAP-Q scores could relate to diagnostic timing for autistic children.

Education

B.S. Psychology, James Madison University, 2024