Dr. Serena Wieder is the Clinical Director and a founding member of the Profectum Foundation, dedicated to advancing the development and mental health of children, of all ages, including adolescents and adults with neurodivergent development and emotional challenges through interdisciplinary training and educational programs. She also co-founded the Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders and was a Board Member of Zero to Three for 23 years. Dr. Wieder serves on various advisory boards to various programs serving infant mental health and other special needs.  Dr. Wieder also founded DIR-Israel, a training program that offers DIR Certificates, and provides consultation and training to many international and national programs.

As a clinical psychologist, Dr. Wieder has pioneered important approaches to diagnosing and treating infants and toddlers with infant mental health and developmental disorders.  She co-created the DIR Model with Stanley Greenspan, edited two diagnostic manuals for infants and young children. Further, she created models for interdisciplinary post-graduate case based training and pioneered parent-mediated intervention for parents of neurodivergent children.

Dr. Wieder has co-chaired and organized national and international conferences integrating development, neuroscience and intervention approaches for over 20 years. Dr. Wieder also developed approaches to integrate visual-spatial knowledge to advance emotional and cognitive development.  Her research interests concern follow up studies of children on the autism spectrum who received DIR model interventions and the evaluation of training and educational programs. In addition, she serves as adjunct faculty at various universities including Bank Street , UCS Davis IMH Fellowship Program, and Adelphi.

Amongst her many publications Dr. Wieder co-authored Engaging Autism, The Child With Special Needs and Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health with Stanley Greenspan, M.D. They also co-edited Infants in Multi-Risk Families as well as the ICDL Diagnostic Manual for Infants and Young Children (DMIC)/ She edited the original Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood (DC 0-3) for Zero-Three. . Her chapters on the DIR Model appear in major textbooks on Autism Spectrum Disorders. Dr. Wieder also co- authored Visual Spatial Portals to Thinking, Feeling, and Movement with Harry Wachs, O.D. She has published numerous journal and book chapters and presents at multiple conferences nationally and internationally.

At this time, Dr. Serena Wieder also has a private practice in NYC for diagnosis, treatment and consultation regarding complex developmental and mental health challenges.

Dr. Connie Kasari is a professor of Psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a leading international expert in developing interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder and their families. Her research focuses on targeted interventions for early social communication development in at-risk infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with autism, and peer relationships for school-aged children with autism, leading to the recognition of her therapy JASPER as an established evidence-based ASD treatment. Much of this work involves populations that have traditionally been understudied and underrepresented in research, including low-resourced children and minimally verbal children. Her work is often conducted in schools. She has published widely on topics related to social, emotional, and communication development and intervention in autism. Dr. Kasari has been the primary advisor to more than 60 UCLA Ph.D. students, is on the science advisory boards of Autism Speaks and the Mount Sinai Seaver Autism Center, and regularly presents to both academic and practitioner audiences locally, nationally, and internationally.

Richard Solomon, MD, is a practicing developmental and behavioral pediatrician, the Medical Director at The Ann Arbor Center for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, and founder of The PLAY Project. He is board certified in pediatrics and developmental and behavioral pediatrics and has been diagnosing and treating children with autism spectrum disorders for over 25 years. With a reputation as the “fun” doctor, Rick is known for his ability to make children smile and laugh, calming their fears and building trust. His overall approach is influenced by his work alongside autism and child development visionaries T. Berry Brazelton MD, Stanley Greenspan MD, and Mr. Fred Rogers.

In 2001, Dr. Rick developed the PLAY Project in response to the need for evidenced-based autism intervention options and from 2009-2012 was the principle investigator of one of the largest autism intervention research studies in the U.S., with the results published in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics. The PLAY Project’s mission is to train a national network of pediatric professionals to deliver an evidence-based, low-cost, intensive, developmental intervention to families of young children with autism spectrum disorders. To that end, Dr. Solomon has trained 500+ pediatric professionals from 30 U.S. states and 7 countries to become certified PLAY Project Consultants. This year, Dr. Solomon published his book Autism: The Potential Within, The PLAY Project Approach for Children with Autism.

Ron Balamuth is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst and a graduate of the New York University post doctoral program in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. He is on the faculty and a supervisor at the William Alanson White Institute Child and adolescent training program, the National Institute for the Psychotherapies and Columbia University Teacher’s College Program in Clinical Psychology. Dr. Balamuth has been involved in DIR Floortime® method for twenty years, serves on the faculty of the DIR® model institute and conducts DIR® model workshops both nationally and internationally. Dr. Balamuth has written, presented and published numerous articles on topics ranging from psychoanalytic approaches to the body, parenting, immigration and the integration of spirituality and psychoanalysis. Dr. Balamuth is in private practice in New York City, where he consults with individuals, couples, families and children. He also leads study groups and case consultations for professionals.

Gilbert M. Foley, Ed.D., IMH-E serves as Consulting Clinical Psychologist at the New York Center for Child Development (NYCCD) in New York City and Clinical Co- Director of the New York City Early Childhood Mental Health Training and Technical Assistance Center (TTAC). He is Endorsed as an Infant Mental Health/ Clinical Mentor, Level IV and is a founding board member of the New York and Pennsylvania State Associations of Infant Mental Health. He is a senior faculty member of the DIR® Profectum Academy and core faculty member of the Psychodynamic Institute for Clinical Social work (Chicago). Dr Foley is a retired Associate Professor (tenured) of the School-Clinical Child Psychology Doctoral Program at Yeshiva University’s Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology and Director Emeritus of the Graduate Program in Infant Mental Health and Developmental Practice at Adelphi University. He served as Visiting Fellow at the Yale Child Study Center and was Director of Psychology in the Department of Pediatrics at the Medical College of Pennsylvania. Dr. Foley is the co-author of four books and has written over 50 scholarly articles and chapters. Linking Sensory Integration and Mental Health: Nurturing Self-Regulation in Infants and Young Children has just been published by National Zero to Three. Dr. Foley lectures widely nationally and internationally.

Profectum Senior Faculty Sima Gerber is a professor of speech-language pathology in the Department of Linguistics and Communication Disorders of Queens College, City University of New York. Dr. Gerber has over 40 years of clinical experience, specializing in the treatment of children with autistic spectrum disorders. Dr. Gerber is on the faculty of Profectum and the Advisory Board of the New York Zero-to-Three Network. Dr. Gerber has presented nationally and abroad on the topics of language acquisition and developmental approaches to intervention for children with challenges in language development. Dr. Gerber is the recipient of the award for Outstanding Service to the field of speech-language pathology given by the New York City Speech-Language-Hearing Association and the Louis DiCarlo Clinical Achievement Award from the New York State Association. Dr. Gerber has received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the New York State Speech-Language-Hearing Association and is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

Christie Virtue, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and a senior faculty member for Profectum. She received her Ph.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University. For over 20 years she was the Director of Early Intervention and Preschool Services for Hudson River HealthCare in Peekskill, N.Y., which provided multidisciplinary assessments and treatment of children birth through five. Prior to her work with young children she was the Co-Director of the Adolescent Depression and Suicide Program at Montefiore Hospital/Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She currently has a private practice in Northern Westchester specializing in the assessment of children with neurodevelopmental challenges.

Ricki Robinson, MD, MPH. is co-director of Descanso Medical Center for Development and Learning in La Canada, California and a clinical professor of pediatrics at the Keck School Medicine of USC. She has been in private pediatric practice for nearly forty years, specializing in children with autism and developmental delays for over twenty-five years.

Dr. Robinson received her MD degree in 1973 from the University of Southern California. She trained in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, having served as Chief Pediatric Resident for CHLA in 1976. She is board certified in pediatrics. In 1988 she received her MPH from the University at Berkeley School of Public Health.

She has been actively involved in the field of autism since 1990, developing multidisciplinary educational and medical programs for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and devoting endless hours in education, legislation and research efforts on a national level. Dr. Robinson has been at the forefront of leading grassroots autism organizations. She was a founding board member of Cure Autism Now (now Autism Speaks) and the Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders (ICDL), and most recently Profectum Foundation. She was a member of the Autism Speaks Scientific Review Panel for over eight years. Dr. Robinson organized and chaired the first nationally recognized task force to define the standard of care for clinical trials in autism. The results of this outstanding effort were published in CNS Spectrums (January 2004, Vol. 9, #1). Most recently she was appointed as Medical Director of Profectum Foundation, an organization devoted to providing multi-disciplinary education and training for parents, families and professionals working with individuals with ASD across the lifespan.

A nationally sought-after expert, she has appeared on the Today Show, The Talk, Larry King Live and Good Morning America Health in support of the needs of children and families with autism spectrum disorders. She is an internationally recognized speaker addressing the needs of children with autism and other developmental delays to parent, professional and lay audiences worldwide for the past two decades. She is also the author of the acclaimed book Autism Solutions – How to Create a Healthy and Meaningful Life for Your Child.