Kathryn E. Gustafson

My scholarly interests and expertise are in pediatric neurodevelopmental outcomes assessment and research as well as child and parent coping with chronic childhood illness. In the 1990s, I collaborated with Dr. Robert Thompson in investigating the transactional biopsychosocial model of adaptation to pediatric conditions in children and families. Our research program was funded by the NIH and culminated in the publication of our book, Adaptation to Chronic Childhood Illness.   Since that time, I have worked closely with the Division of Neonatology and the Duke Neonatal-Perinatal Research Unit on neurodevelopmental outcomes research with high-risk infants, toddlers, and school-age children. I am a gold standard psychology consultant to the Neonatal Research Network (NRN) of the NIH/NICHD, train and certify psychologists nationally and internationally in infant and toddler developmental assessment for numerous research groups, and serve as consultant for protocol development.  In addition, I collaborate with colleagues in Pediatric Ophthalmology to investigate preterm optic nerve anatomy assessed via optical coherence tomography imaging and the association with neurodevelopment. I am also involved in investigations of umbilical cord blood stem cell transplant for young children with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, cerebral palsy, and inborn errors of metabolism, such as Krabbe disease, with colleagues in the Pediatric Transplant and Cellular Therapy program.