Kerri P. Nowell is assistant clinical professor in the Department of Health Psychology at the University of Missouri. She is housed at the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders where she is the Principal Investigator for several research grants, leads autism diagnostic clinics, and provides clinical supervision and training for students at various training levels. Prior to obtaining her doctoral degree from the University of Houston, Nowell was a Site Supervisor for the Simons Simplex Collection at Baylor College of Medicine. Nowell has clinical expertise in the diagnosis and treatment of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). She also has considerable experience with interdisciplinary collaboration in clinical and research contexts.

Nowell’s research focuses broadly on improving the diagnostic process for individuals suspected of having ASD. Specifically, her clinical research to date has focused on diagnostic evaluation and characterization of the ASD phenotype. Her scientific contributions fall into three major categories: 1) characterizing phenotypic profiles in ASD with an aim to identify possible subpopulations within the spectrum, 2) working on interdisciplinary research teams to examine the relation between behavioral phenotype and genotype, and 3) examining how socio-demographic and individual factors may influence timeliness of ASD diagnosis.