A four-year grant awarded to Ruth Grossman, an assistant professor of communication sciences and disorders, will fund a new lab specifically for autism research, according to an article on Emerson’s website. The article states that the $1.5 million grant, given by the National Institutes of Health, the government research agency, will subsidize purchasing equipment that tracks eye gaze and facial movements. Grossman’s research, completed via Emerson’s Facial Affective and Communicative Expression—or FACE—lab, which she oversees, will focus on helping adolescents with high-functioning autism overcome social awkwardness through studying how they produce and interpret facial and nonverbal cues, according to the lab’s website. Darren Hedley, a postdoctoral fellow who works at the FACE lab, will also receive financial support from the award, according to Emerson’s article.