Linda Blanco
Kenneth H. Bryant
Laurie Cestnick
Shannon Cothran
Michael G. Hehir
Elisabeth (Beth) Lembo
Shannon J. McNamara
Judit Price
Marla Stone
James N. Stone
Robert (Buck) A. Weaver
Linnea Weaver
Monika E. Wilkinson
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Laurie Cestnick , Ph.D., M.Ed.
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Dr. Cestnick is a Neuroscientist who has been conducting clinical work and research for over ten years. She joined Weaver Center, formerly Weaver Clinic, in October 2005 and conducts comprehensive evaluations, as well as individual and group therapy sessions.
Dr. Cestnick grew up in Oakville, Ontario, Canada – a suburb on Lake Ontario, thirty minutes west of Toronto, where most of her extended family still reside. Dr. Cestnick comes from a large family and adores children. She remained in Ontario for much of her life until the completion of her bachelor and master degrees from McMaster and Brock Universities, respectively. Dr. Cestnick conducted her master’s thesis at Chedoke McMaster Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario, where she designed programs to improve reading comprehension of adults with brain injuries (funded by the Scottish Rite Charitable Foundation of Canada). Information obtained from this study led to the receipt of the Henry Jackman Award from the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, for contributions to education in Ontario. Upon completion of this work, she was awarded the Overseas Postgraduate Research Scholarship (Australian Scholarship) to work with Dr. Max Coltheart at Macquarie University. Dr. Cestnick remained in the Sydney area for almost five years studying the cognitive and neuropsychological basis of reading and dyslexia models. While conducting her research, she was also trained in clinical neuropsychology and worked in local hospitals.
During this time in Australia, Dr. Cestnick conversed with colleagues
around the globe who were also in search for answers regarding how we come to read, how reading fails, and how reading processes are represented in the brain. She had received excellent training in the cognitive and neuropsychological models of reading and dyslexia, and contributed to the evolution of such models, but wished to take the field further by merging these cognitive/neuropsychological models with neurobiology. After graduating from doctoral studies at Macquarie University, she received a three-year fellowship from Harvard University and the Canadian Institute of Health Research to work with scientists dedicating their careers to examining the neuroanatomical and neurophysiological underpinnings of dyslexia, such as Dr. Albert Galaburda (one of her doctoral thesis examiners). These years at the Harvard Medical School were spent at the Massachusetts General Research Hospital (MGH) in Charlestown conducting functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) and magnetoencephalograph (MEG) studies of children with reading difficulties and learning disorders. Speech perception, visual attention, visual perception, and temporal processing were areas of interest from which the neurophysiology and neurobiology of reading, dyslexia and learning were approached. Amidst her work here, Dr. Cestnick was nominated and interviewed for a Harvard Junior Fellow position (open to scientists around the globe from all disciplines). Dr. Cestnick continues her research with colleagues at MGH and McLean Hospital to date, and has expanded to studying a broad spectrum of clinical disorders.
Dr. Cestnick has over thirty scientific publications, frequently speaks in the areas of reading, dyslexia, and cognitive neuroscience, and is currently writing a book on dyslexia for NOVA. She will be presenting work on the “Neurobiology of Visual Attention: implications for learning and dyslexia” at the Learning and Brain Conference in Cambridge, MA in Spring 2006. This is a conference for teachers, tutors, parents, and any person interested in learning relationships between the brain, learning and teaching.
Dr. Cestnick lives in Weston, MA, and spends her free time exploring the rivers of New England as a white water kayaker. She belongs to several wildlife and environmental protection agencies, as well as advocacies for children.
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