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Maggie Shiffrar

Dr. Maggie Shiffrar is a cognitive psychologist whose research primarily centers around biological motion perception in humans, most notably how individuals with autism process visual information and the relationship with visual perception and the social behaviors correlated with autism. Dr. Shiffrar was one of the first to research visual analysis and body movement as the focus of her autism research, as most autism research prior centers only on face perception. The goal of her research is to determine how moving objects are interpreted by the visual system.

Early life and Education

Maggie Shiffrar was born in California and was raised in San Francisco. Originally intending to become a MD, Dr. Shiffrar discovered her passion for human behavior as an undergrad at the University of California at Santa Cruz while earning her bachelor’s degree in psychobiology. Dr. Shiffrar then earned her Ph.D. Cognitive Psychology at Stanford University. Shiffrar then briefly studied visual motion perception in France at Université de Paris V, returning to California to work for NASA at the Ames Research Center Institution. In 1991, Shiffrar joined the psychology department at Rutgers University-Newark. Among other roles, during her time at Rutgers-Newark she served as the department chair, director of the graduate program. In 2012 Maggie Shiffrar Appointed Dean of the Graduate School at Rutgers University-Newark. Dr. Shiffrar is currently a professor of psychology at California State University, Northridge. To date she has published 99 research papers.

Autism and Visual Perception Research at Rutgers

Dr. Shiffrar’s research on autism in relation to body perception was a part of research projects delving into the perception of others by individuals with autism initiated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and funded by a $400,000 grant from National Science Foundation. The end goal was to create a program that would train individuals already adept at interpreting emotional cues from body movement to advance their skills further, and be used to identify terrorists and other threats from a distance on the basis of body language. At the time, Dr. Shiffrar was a psychology professor at Rutgers University in Newark and worked alongside the at the time associate psychology professor Kent Harber. The research was conducted in the Research on Autism at Rutgers ROAR (Research On Autism at Rutgers) lab, created by Dr. Shiffrar. Their research determined that individuals with the least amount of autistic tendencies were more successful in determining body movement as opposed to object movement. Those with more autistic tendencies had difficulty differentiating, perceived human and object movement to be the same. Dr. Shifftar also stated that she hoped to determine whether those with autism had difficulty differentiated between human and object movement due to perceiving them the same, or rather due to a lack of practice in interaction with other humans in order to function.

Awards

Shiffrar is an elected fellow of the American Psychological Association (2004) and Association for Psychological Science (2005).

Lansdowne Scholar Award from the University of Victoria in British Columbia (2003)
Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research from Rutgers University (2008)
Hosford Scholarship Award for Research Excellence from the Faculty of Arts & Sciences at Rutgers-Newark (2009/2010)
Faculty Leader in Diversity Award from Rutgers University (2011)

Personal Life

Dr. Shiffrar and her long time partner, Dr. Angele Thompson, have two cats.

References

http://nwkpsych.rutgers.edu/roar/people.html
Rutgers University. "Connections Between Vision And Movement, As They Relate To Perceived Threats, Autism." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 13 October 2008. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081008184828.htm
https://wisem.rutgers.edu/node/421
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maggie-Shiffrar
https://www.newark.rutgers.edu/news/maggie-shiffrar-appointed-dean-graduate-school-rutgers-university-newark