My scientific interests have evolved a bit over time, but I always have been interested in the development of the human intellect. In general, I am interested in the biology underlying personality, behavior, and consciousness; in short the mechanics of who we are as intelligent animals and how such an impossibly complex system could come to be. For the last five years or so, my primary research interest has been the genetic origins of complex behavior, with an emphasis on the functional neuroanatomy that mediates the effect of genes on psychology.

At Stanford, I had the great honor of working in Allan Reiss¹ neuroimaging laboratory (the Stanford, Psychiatry Neuroimaging Laboratory, or SPNL), first as a student, and ultimately as a research associate and lab manager . Though I did some research in a few other labs as an undergrad , all of this work is eclipsed by this time at SPNL. My experiences at SPNL were among the greatest of my life. I primarily worked on mapping the structural and functional differences associated with Williams syndrome, a rare and fascinating genetic condition. Over time, I worked on several other conditions, including dyslexia, VCFS, bipolar disorder, Coffin-Lowry syndrome, and using squirrel monkeys to model the effects of stress on the brain. Through this work, I have also become interested in developing improved automated techniques for the analyses of MRI images, as well as in figuring out ways to best deal with large amounts of data derived from very different scientific methods.

Currently, I work at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics (VIPBG) under the direction of Dr. Ken Kendler, and I hope to do my thesis there. Dr. Kendler¹s work is one of the primary reasons why I decided to come to MCV. Like SPNL, VIPBG also is interested in the origins of behavior and psychiatric problems, but approaches the problem slightly differently by using behavioral differences between monozygotic and dizygotic twins to tease apart variance owed to genetic factors. Also like SPNL, VIPBG is a collective of scientists of numerous specialties and backgrounds, but all working closely together on the same goals. I am now spending much of my time understanding the complexities of the twin model paradigm, but ultimately I hope to bring together these newly learned techniques with what I learned at Stanford.