Since joining the faculty at Harvard in 2012, she has been the director of the Affective Neuroscience and Development Laboratory. The lab’s research integrates psychological and neuroscientific approaches to inform how the way in which the brain develops through adolescence shapes psychological changes in cognitive, motivational, social, and emotional behavior. Leah’s lab has become engaged in conducting the Human Connectome Project in Development, which is a large, NIH-funded study on multimodal brain connectivity across development from middle childhood to early adulthood. More broadly, this work is aimed at revealing the mechanisms underlying unique features of adolescent emotions, decision-making, and risk for mental illness.