Joe Dust, BA Research Assistant
Joe Dust, BA, joined the Developing Brain Institute (DBI) as a Research Assistant in July 2025. Joe graduated with his BA in Psychology from the University of Missouri and started working in research at Washington University in St. Louis, also in Missouri. Working as a Research Assistant in the Human Connectome Project under Dr. Deanna Barch, Joe performed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of hundreds of adults and children as young as 5. After becoming more interested in the image-processing side of MRI, he joined the Washington University Neurodevelopmental Lab (WUNDERLab) as a Neuroimaging Research Technician, working under Drs. Chris Smyser and Cynthia Rogers.
In this role, Joe ran MRIs on infants experiencing early-life adversity as well as preterm children at age 10. Additionally, he preprocessed their structural and diffusion data, which gave him hands-on experience with manual segmentation editing and tract tracing since pipelines had not been fully automated in this population. Joe has given several presentations focusing on executive functioning, theory of mind, and how both relate to autistic traits in clinical and healthy populations. Since 2022, he has continued this effort in the Behavior, Cognition and Neuroscience PhD program at American University, working under Catherine J. Stoodley, BS, MS, DPhil. Currently, Joe is investigating the role of the cerebellum in cognitive flexibility and social learning in neurotypical and autistic adults via neuromodulation (transcranial direct current stimulation) and functional MRI. Outside of the lab, he enjoys DJing, playing games, biking and watching reality TV with his wife, Rachel, and their cat, Meeko.
Address: 111 Michigan Ave. NW; Washington, D.C., 20010
Email: fetalbrain@childrensnational.org
Department: MRI Lab
Recent publications & Presentations
2025
Dust J, Tegiacchi RF, Lee MM, Schwartz A, Paknejad M, Younesie H, Stoodley CJ. “Cerebellar Modulation of Brain Activation During Cognitive Flexibility in Autism: A tDCS-fMRI Study.” International Society for Autism Research 2025 Annual Meeting (INSAR2025). Seattle, WA. April 2025.
2022
Kaplan S, Meyer D, Miranda-Dominguez O, Perrone A, Earl E, Alexopoulos D, Barch DM, Day TKM, Dust J, Eggebrecht AT, Feczko E, Kardan O, Kenley JK, Rogers CE, Wheelock MD, Yacoub E, Rosenberg M, Elison JT, Fair DA, Smyser CD. “Filtering Respiratory Motion Artifact From Resting State fMRI Data in Infant and Toddler Populations.” Neuroimage. 2022 Feb 15;247:118838. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118838. Epub 2021 Dec 20. PMID: 34942363; PMCID: PMC8803544
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34942363
2021
West HV, Burgess GC, Dust J, Kandala S, Barch DM. “Amygdala Activation in Cognitive Task fMRI Varies With Individual Differences in Cognitive Traits.” Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience. 2021 Feb;21(1):254-264. doi: 10.3758/s13415-021-00863-3. Epub 2021 Mar 8. PMID: 33683660; PMCID: PMC8480985
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33683660