I am a clinical psychologist and behavior geneticist and did my undergraduate degree in Human Development and Family Studies at Cornell University, graduating in 1982, then attended graduate school at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada earning my Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in 1988. Following my year-long clinical internship at the Lafayette Clinic in Detroit (1987-88), I completed a three-year Postdoctoral Fellowship in Behavioral Genetics at the University of Minnesota. I have been a faculty member in the Psychology Department at Emory University since the fall of 1991. I was President-Elect / President of the Behavior Genetics Association from 2010-11 and am an Associate Editor of the journal, Behavior Genetics. I have been on the editorial boards of four other journals (Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Clinical Psychological Science, Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, and Development and Psychopathology).
My overarching interests are in developmental psychopathology and behavior genetics. In my lab we work at the intersection of psychology, statistics, genetics, and biology to understand the classification, causes, development, and biological underpinnings of psychopathology and relevant personality and neurocognitive traits across the lifespan.
Chris is originally from Michigan, and earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, majoring in Psychology and Philosophy. After spending a few years in education, first in Mississippi with Teach for America and subsequently in Boston, he earned his Masters of Education from Harvard University, with a concentration in Mind, Brain, and Education. He was then a Research Data Analyst and Research Coordinator at McLean Hospital and at Franciscan Children’s where he worked on research projects related to psychological trauma and child and adolescent mental health outcomes. His research in the Waldman Lab focuses on specifying transdiagnostic models of psychopathology and investigating the genetic and environmental contributions to psychopathology in childhood and adolescence. In particular, he is currently using meta-analytic methods to study how differences between dimensional models of psychopathology impact the reliability of latent factors within these models. This work will help refine alternative taxonomies of psychopathology such as the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) and help inform our understanding of how symptoms and symptom dimensions of mental illness tend to cooccur. Chris is also using models of polygenic and polyenvironmental risk within a quantitative behavior genetic framework to study how broad environmental and genetic risk combine to influence the development of externalizing psychopathology.
Ali holds a bachelor’s degree from New York University, where he double-majored in Philosophy and Religious Studies. He then completed a postbaccalaureate program in psychology at Columbia University, where he developed a keen interest in abnormal psychology and individual differences. Building on this foundation, Ali earned a Master of Science in Psychology of Individual Differences from The University of Edinburgh. His current research centers on psychiatric nosology, leveraging his interdisciplinary background to enhance the understanding and classification of mental health disorders. In particular, he is currently examining the structure of psychopathology within the All of Us Research Program, exploring the relationship between higher-order dimensions of psychopathology and social determinants of health, as well as assessing the measurement invariance of these dimensions across different sociodemographic strata.
Soo Rhee, Professor and Director of the Clinical Psychology program at University of Colorado Boulder,
Ian Gizer, Associate Professor in the Clinical Psychology program in Department of Psychology at University of Missouri,
Kelly Harrington, Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at Boston University Medical School,
Devon LoParo, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Emory University School of Medicine,
Randy Elder, Director of the Office of Science Quality within the Office of Science at the Centers for Disease Control,
Amber Singh, Associate Director of the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Veterans Affairs,
Courtney Lyding, People Analytics Senior Research Consultant at The Coca-Cola Company, Atlanta, GA.
Elizabeth Brestan-Knight, Alma Holladay Endowed Professor of Psychology at Auburn University,
Jonathon Cohen, Associate Professor of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine,
Josh Weinstock, Assistant Professor, Department of Human Genetics at Emory University
S. Alex Burt, SSC Diamond Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University
I also have informally mentored or co-mentored several junior faculty and postdoctoral fellows:
Marie-Pier Larose, Senior Researcher, INVEST Research Flagship, Turku Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Turku in Finland
James Li, A. A. Alexander Associate Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin
Justin Luningham, Assistant Professor at Texas Christian University
Hasse Walum, Department of Pediatrics, Emory University