Dr. Laird's research uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to understand the organization of large-scale networks in the human brain. She is the Director of the Neuroinformatics and Brain Connectivity (NBC) Lab, which focuses on developing novel data analysis algorithms, neuroscience informatics tools, and neuroimaging ontologies to yield analytic strategies for improving investigations into functional brain networks. Her current projects are examining changes associated with adolescent development, undergraduate science education, and addiction. In addition, Dr. Laird is the Director of FIU's Center for Imaging Science, an interdisciplinary research center that hosts a 3.0 T Siemens MAGNETOM Prisma MRI.
Dr. Laird received her B.S. in Physics from Florida State University in 1998, and her Ph.D. in Physics/Medical Physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2002. Her research is currently funded by multiple awards from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
Her specialties are fMRI, functional brain connectivity, neuroeducation, brain development, addiction.