For over 30 years, Aysenil Belger has led research and discoveries on the mechanisms of brain development, brain function and mental health in children, adolescents, and adults. Her research particularly explores the neurobiological precursors and predictors of psychiatric disorders and symptoms in children and adolescents. She has led teams of scientists, scholars and students in translational and interdisciplinary research examining the cortical circuits underlying attention, executive function, decision making and emotion processing in the human brain, and their breakdown in neuropsychiatric disorders, such as autism, schizophrenia, mood disorders and PTSD. She has served as principal investigator on numerous NIH funded projects including site PI for the BIRN consortium, Project PI for the UNC Conte Center, and site PI for the international North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study (NAPLS) and PRONET (prodrome network) multisite collaborative studies. Her research combines functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electrophysiological scalp recording (EEG), functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), experimental psychology and neuropsychological assessment techniques to explore the behavioral and neurophysiological underpinnings of sensory and cognitive impairments across neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopment disorders. Her more recent work focuses on elucidating biological mechanisms of stress and victimization, and how they impact adolescent brain development. She currently examines stress regulation and brain function in adolescence, experiencing anhedonia and anxiety, and risk for psychosis and substance abuse. Since 1999 she has served as director of the Neurocognition and Imaging Research Lab at the University of North Carolina where numerous students, postdoctoral trainees and early career faculty interested in psychology and brain mapping build skills including study design, data collection, analytics, grant writing, presentations, publication, and team science. She served as Director of the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute in 2018, leading this world-renowned Institution in the field of early childcare and education. Her leadership has enhanced the Institute’s impact, expanded its research portfolio to meet the challenges of our communities. Belger serves as the Director of the Clinical Translational Research Core of the UNC Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center. She was elected as a Fellow of American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP). She has served on numerous NIH study sections and as a speaker and consultant for various organizations. She eagerly mentors multiple undergraduate, graduate and medical students, postdoctoral trainees and junior faculty, and teaches Cognitive Clinical Neuroscience at UNC.