Alokananda Rudra

I completed my BSc in Physiology honors and my MSc in Biophysics from India.

In 2009 I joined as a research assistant on a large scale study on autism in India, in collaboration with University of Reading. Here for the first time we translated and validated 4 globally accepted autism screening and diagnostic tools in two Indian languages. I won the Felix scholarship in 2011 and joined the University of Reading to pursue my PhD. Based on my autism work in India,I carried out the first ever prevalence study on autism in India as part of my PhD topic. I also translated and validated 3 cognitive measures and behavioural traits for autism in Indian languages.

In 2014 I joined a post doctoral position at the Ben Gurion University in Israel where I used fMRI and eye tracking to study trial by trial variability in cortical responses to sensory stimuli.

After a short career break, I won the the Daphne Jackson fellowhsip in 2020.I joined the Centre for Neurodiversity and Development at the Department of Psychology in Durham university. I work with Prof. Deborah Riby and Dr. Mary Hanley on neurodevelopmental conditions, specifically Autism and ADHD.

My research interests are atypical sensory processing in autism and its relation to other comorbidities such as ADHD. I am also interested in looking at externalising behaviour (such as anxiety and withdrawal) arising from sensory processing. I am also interested in the effect of atypical sensory processing on adaptive functioning in Autistic and ADHD individuals and also it's association with attention difficulties.