| Irwin D. Waldman is Professor in the Department of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where he has been on the faculty since the fall of 1991. He completed his undergraduate education with a B.S. in Human Development and Family Studies at Cornell University, and his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Waterloo in 1988 with a specialization in Clinical. Following this, he completed an NIMH postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Minnesota where he worked with several faculty, including Matt McGue, Sandra Scarr, and Rich Weinberg. His primary research interests are the causes, classification, and development of children’s disruptive disorders and behavior problems, which include Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Conduct Disorder, aggression, and antisocial behavior. In collaborations with colleagues using samples from around the world, his research has employed quantitative genetic methods to disentangle and characterize genetic and environmental influences on these behavior problems, and molecular genetic designs to test for association between these disorders and candidate genes that underlie neurotransmitter function. Waldman has co-authored over 100 articles and chapters, and is co-editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Violent and Aggressive Behavior. He has been PI on an NIMH-funded career development award focusing on a candidate gene study of childhood disruptive disorders, and Co-PI and co-investigator (in collaboration with Ben Lahey) on a twin study of the Basic Dimensions of Child and Adolescent Psychopathology and a genetically-informative family study of the Genetic Epidemiology of Youth Conduct Problems. Waldman has been a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Social, Genetic, and Developmental Psychiatry Research in London, a Visiting Faculty Scholar at the Henry A. Murray Research Center at Harvard, a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics in Boulder, and a Visiting Scientist at the Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit, Center for Human Genetic Research, Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He has served as a reviewer on the Behavior Genetics and Epidemiology Study Section (BGES) at NIH, was a member of the task force on Social, Legal, and Research Implications of Behavioral Genetics for the American Society of Human Genetics in 1995 and 1996, and is an Associate Editor of Behavior Genetics and is on the editorial boards of Development and Psychopathology, The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice, and the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. He has been a member of the Behavior Genetics Association since 1989 (and has attended each of the annual meetings since) and was a Member-at-large of the Executive Committee from 1998 to 2000. Dr. Waldman would be honored to serve the Association again as President, and if elected would seek to strengthen connections with individuals and organizations involved with psychiatric and statistical genetics and to build bridges between behavior geneticists using human and animal samples. | Irwin D. Waldman is Professor in the Department of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where he has been on the faculty since the fall of 1991. He completed his undergraduate education with a B.S. in Human Development and Family Studies at Cornell University, and his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Waterloo in 1988 with a specialization in Clinical. Following this, he completed an NIMH postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Minnesota where he worked with several faculty, including Matt McGue, Sandra Scarr, and Rich Weinberg. His primary research interests are the causes, classification, and development of children’s disruptive disorders and behavior problems, which include Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Conduct Disorder, aggression, and antisocial behavior. In collaborations with colleagues using samples from around the world, his research has employed quantitative genetic methods to disentangle and characterize genetic and environmental influences on these behavior problems, and molecular genetic designs to test for association between these disorders and candidate genes that underlie neurotransmitter function. Waldman has co-authored over 100 articles and chapters, and is co-editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Violent and Aggressive Behavior. He has been PI on an NIMH-funded career development award focusing on a candidate gene study of childhood disruptive disorders, and Co-PI and co-investigator (in collaboration with Ben Lahey) on a twin study of the Basic Dimensions of Child and Adolescent Psychopathology and a genetically-informative family study of the Genetic Epidemiology of Youth Conduct Problems. Waldman has been a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Social, Genetic, and Developmental Psychiatry Research in London, a Visiting Faculty Scholar at the Henry A. Murray Research Center at Harvard, a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics in Boulder, and a Visiting Scientist at the Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit, Center for Human Genetic Research, Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He has served as a reviewer on the Behavior Genetics and Epidemiology Study Section (BGES) at NIH, was a member of the task force on Social, Legal, and Research Implications of Behavioral Genetics for the American Society of Human Genetics in 1995 and 1996, and is an Associate Editor of Behavior Genetics and is on the editorial boards of Development and Psychopathology, The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice, and the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. He has been a member of the Behavior Genetics Association since 1989 (and has attended each of the annual meetings since) and was a Member-at-large of the Executive Committee from 1998 to 2000. Dr. Waldman would be honored to serve the Association again as President, and if elected would seek to strengthen connections with individuals and organizations involved with psychiatric and statistical genetics and to build bridges between behavior geneticists using human and animal samples. |
| | Alex Burt first heard about behavioral genetics in an undergraduate Brain and Behavior class at Emory University. She was very intrigued by the power of genes in human and animal experiences, and quickly signed up to work as a research assistant in Irwin Waldman’s research lab. She went to graduate school at the University of Minnesota, working with Matt McGue, Bill Iacono, and Bob Krueger, and completed her PhD in 2004. She currently works as an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University. Her research interests center on the roles of genes, environments, and gene-environment interplay in the development of childhood conduct problems. She directs (along with Kelly Klump) the newly-established Michigan State University Twin Registry, a large-scale registry of child and adolescent twins designed to examine genetic, environmental, and neurobiological influences on the development of internalizing and externalizing symptoms. With funding from the NIMH, she is now collecting data in 500 child twin families to examine gene-environment interplay in childhood conduct problems. Additional projects include a NIMH funded study to consider dynamic interrelationships between ovarian hormones and disordered eating, and a molecular genetic study of evocative gene-environment correlations. She very much enjoys the collegial and intellectually stimulating climate of the Behavior Genetics Association, and always looks forward the annual meetings. She is honored to have been nominated for Member at Large of the BGA, and promises to work as hard as she can on behalf of the organization and its members! |
