Dr. Malavi Srikar is a certified speech-language pathologist and researcher specializing in early social communication and autism. She completed her BSc at the SR Chandrashekar Institute of Speech and Hearing, Bangalore (2016), followed by an MSc from the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH), Mysore (2019). She subsequently earned her PhD in Speech-Language Pathology from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore (2025). During her professional journey, she has also served as a tele-interventionist at AIISH (2020) and was a research scientist on an ICMR-funded project at NIMHANS (2026).
Dr. Srikar’s research centers on caregiver-infant dyadic interaction and caregiver-mediated tele-interventions for infants at elevated likelihood for autism. In 2022, she was awarded a Virtual Research Internship in Autism and Cultural Diversity by the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR), collaborating with mentors from the University of Manchester to study these interactions in Indian dyads. She has received travel grants in 2024 and 2025 to present her work at the INSAR annual meetings and has published several articles in major international journals.
As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Srikar will examine dyadic engagement in infants at elevated likelihood for autism. During her fellowship, she will build on work pioneered by Prof. Grace Baranek to investigate the interrelationships between dyadic engagement and sensory responsivity patterns, representing the two core domains of autism, with the goal of informing early identification and intervention strategies.