Laura Machlin, Ph.D.

Laura Machlin, Ph.D., became a program director with CDBB in 2024. She manages the branch’s Neurodevelopment, Cognition, and Behavior Research Program. 

Prior to joining NICHD, Dr. Machlin was a postdoctoral fellow in Harvard University’s Department of Psychology. Her prior research focused on neurodevelopmental mechanisms linking early life experiences and risk for psychopathology in early childhood and adolescence. Dr. Machlin’s work has integrated tools from developmental cognitive neuroscience and clinical psychology, including experimental tasks, observational approaches, functional and structural neuroimaging, and peripheral physiology. 

Dr. Machlin received a B.A. in psychology from Wesleyan University and then conducted research as an NIH postbaccalaureate student Intramural Research and Training Award program fellow with the National Institute of Mental Health’s Emotion and Development Branch. She earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She completed her clinical psychology internship at Western Psychiatric Hospital in Pittsburgh.