At Washington University School of Medicine, we’re advancing the science and impact of child mental health care.
As a leading child psychiatry research program in the United States, major priorities of our scientific efforts are to identify the earliest causes of serious psychiatric syndromes, to develop specific interventions to prevent their occurrence, and to build resilience in childhood.
Our research portfolio includes distinguished interdisciplinary research centers:
- An Early Emotional Development Program pioneering the identification of early predictors of mood disorders in childhood and adolescence (J. Luby, MD, Director)
- One of 14 Kennedy Centers for Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities Research in the U.S. (National Institute for Child Health and Human Development), with a focus on genetic and environmental influences on developmental disabilities (C. Gurnett, MD and J. Dougherty, PhD, Co-Directors)
- Sites for two National Institutes of Health Autism Centers of Excellence (K. Botteron, MD, Infant Brain Imaging Study Site Director, N. Marrus, MD Gene Discovery Study Site Coordinator)
The Division maintains legacy longitudinal studies that track the life course of depression, autistic syndromes, and ADHD from early childhood to the adult years.
View full descriptions of the research programs of each of our core faculty members »
Research training
The environment for research training is extraordinary and includes a unique U.S. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) post-doctoral training program as well as four U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) post-doctoral fellowship programs spanning substance use, genetics and epidemiology. These programs are dedicated to educating the next generation of scientists to conduct research in key frontiers of discovery in developmental neuroscience and child psychiatry.
Research opportunities for second-year fellows exist in many of these programs.