Women in Science and Engineering at Yale (2020 Edition)

Linda Mayes, MD

Arnold Gesell Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Psychology

Director of the Yale Child Study Center

Special Advisor to the Dean in the Yale School of Medicine

Dr. Mayes has focused on understanding how early stress and adversity impact children’s cognitive and emotional development and their ability to flourish as adults. Related to her work with children at significantly high-risk for developmental impairments from both biological and psychosocial causes, her lab also studies the impact of parenting on the development of stress regulatory processes in their children, and specifically on how substance abuse impacts reward and stress regulatory systems in new parents.

Mothers who are substance-using have a decreased neural response to infant faces with different emotional expressions as compared to non-substance-using mothers. Photo credit: Dr. Mayes