Shelby Grebbin was Spectrum’s editorial assistant. Before joining Spectrum, she was staff assistant at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism. As a freelance journalist, she has covered stories related to public health, data transparency and prison health care. Shelby has a B.A. in journalism from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts.
Shelby Grebbin
Editorial Assistant
From this contributor
Researchers publish new dataset on minimally verbal autistic people
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published the first repository of vocalizations from minimally verbal autistic people. Those with few or no spoken words still produce a range of phonemes, or units of sound, that may serve as developmental markers or intervention targets.
Researchers publish new dataset on minimally verbal autistic people
By
Shelby Grebbin
18 May 2022 | 4 min read
Autism and menopause: Q&A with Rachel Moseley and Julie Turner-Cobb
Menopause poses significant challenges for autistic people, according to a small survey published in 2020 — the first to explore the transition among people with autism traits.
Autism and menopause: Q&A with Rachel Moseley and Julie Turner-Cobb
By
Shelby Grebbin
7 April 2022 | 5 min read
Web-based autism screening service raises a host of concerns
Neurona Health, a company in San Francisco, California, backed away from part of its newly launched services after Spectrum started reporting about them.
Web-based autism screening service raises a host of concerns
By
Shelby Grebbin
21 March 2022 | 6 min read
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Dutch primate center awaits October animal research debate
Science is forging ahead at the Biomedical Primate Research Centre in the Netherlands, following a reversal of last year’s mandate to phase out primate studies. But researchers aren’t sure how long the reprieve will last.
Dutch primate center awaits October animal research debate
Science is forging ahead at the Biomedical Primate Research Centre in the Netherlands, following a reversal of last year’s mandate to phase out primate studies. But researchers aren’t sure how long the reprieve will last.
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Lauren Schenkman
2 September 2026 | 5 min read
When we sleep, our brain is filled with spontaneous neural activity. What is it doing?
Daniel Levenstein explains how internally generated brain activity during sleep shapes our cognition, and why NeuroAI is such a powerful approach to understanding the brain.
When we sleep, our brain is filled with spontaneous neural activity. What is it doing?
Daniel Levenstein explains how internally generated brain activity during sleep shapes our cognition, and why NeuroAI is such a powerful approach to understanding the brain.
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Paul Middlebrooks
2 September 2026 | 96 min listen
Unconfounding genetic and environmental factors, and more
Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 31 August.
Unconfounding genetic and environmental factors, and more
Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 31 August.
By
Jill Adams
1 September 2026 | 2 min read