Rachel Reetzke is a speech-language pathologist and an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and at the Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Center for Autism and Related Disorders.

Reetzke earned her Ph.D. in communication sciences and disorders from the University of Texas at Austin, with focused training in auditory cognitive neuroscience methodology. She then completed postdoctoral training at the University of California, Davis MIND Institute (Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders) as a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)-funded Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) postdoctoral fellow, where she received clinical research training in early assessment and intervention for infants at elevated likelihood for and toddlers with autism and other related neurodevelopmental disabilities.

Leveraging behavioral, electrophysiological and novel machine learning approaches, Reetzke’s research focuses on characterizing early behavioral phenotypes and developmental trajectories and identifying early predictors of neurotypical and neurodivergent development in infants at elevated likelihood for and toddlers with autism. The long-term goal of this work is to inform the development of cost-effective, scalable, objective outcome measures and to elucidate optimal mechanistic targets and timing for early intervention. Reetzke’s current research is supported by grants from the United States Department of Defense, the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health.