The Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics pre- and post-doc awards were announced on December 11, 2025. This year, the awardees include Walker Rogers who received the Kenneth S. Kendler Award for Excellence in Pre-Doctoral Research, and Mohammad Hassan, PhD, who accepted the Lindon Eaves Post-Doctoral Award
Continue Reading →Madhurbain Singh received the 2023-2024 Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics IDEA Seminar Award for his seminar titled “GWAS across the ancestry spectrum in UK Biobank enhances genomic discovery for major depression” presented on May 16, 2024.
Continue Reading →Marc Kealhofer, Graduate Student at the Virginia Institute of Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, is a Poster Presentation Finalists in the 2023 Early Career Investigator Program Award from the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics for his abstract “Dissecting the Relationship Between Major Depressive Disorder and Cognition Using Genetics.“
Continue Reading →Severine Lannoy, PhD, receives the 2023 Early Career Investigator Program Award from the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics as a post-doctoral researcher for her abstract “The Roles of Aggregate Genetic Liability and Early Adversity in Risk for Suicidal Thought and Behavior.“
Continue Reading →Mallory Stephenson, Graduate Student at the Virginia Institute of Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, is a Poster Presentation Finalists at the IASR/AFSP 2023 International Summit on Suicide Research for her abstract “Clarifying the Relationship Between Painful and Provocative Events and Risk for Suicide Attempt in a Swedish National Sample.“
Continue Reading →Madhurbain Singh, from the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, received The 2nd Rising Star Award at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Behavior Genetics Association for his oral presentation “Harnessing the Genetic Diversity in the UK Biobank to Enhance Genomic Discovery.“
Continue Reading →Ruth Brown-Ennis, PhD, received the 2021-2022 Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics IDEA Seminar Award for her seminar titled “Genetically informed approaches to understanding mental health disparities among people with intellectual and developmental disabilities: Updates from the HOPE lab” presented on December 9, 2021.
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Rao emphasizes university values at event marking the beginning of the academic year.
Virginia Commonwealth University President Michael Rao, Ph.D., marked the beginning of the academic year Wednesday by recognizing distinguished faculty. First, he delivered an unwavering message about the university’s values.
“As a research university we have to continue to be mindful of the fact that we are leading in a very challenging time,” Rao said at VCU’s Opening Faculty Address and Convocation. “In light of a lot of things that have gone on in the last week or two, I want you to know that I absolutely abhor racism. I abhor anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, sexism, genderism, ageism and religious intolerance. I will not accept ...
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Michael Neale, Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry in the School of Medicine, received the Distinguished Scholarship Award. He has dedicated his research to making connections between how genetic, environmental and behavioral factors interact and contribute to illnesses such as substance abuse and psychiatric disorders.
Michael Neale created an open-source computer program widely used by researchers in modeling data to determine whether genetic variants are linked to outcome variables. The program has been cited more than 3,000 times in scientific literature.
“I hope these tools will be further developed by future generations of researchers.”
“At any point in history, it [has been] a great privilege to work as an ...
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Virginia Commonwealth University will recognize distinguished faculty at its 35th annual Opening Faculty Address and Convocation on Wednesday.
VCU President Michael Rao, Ph.D., and Gail Hackett, Ph.D., provost and vice president for academic affairs, will preside over the ceremony, which will begin at 3:30 p.m. at the W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts, 922 Park Ave. VCU will live stream the event online at http://go.vcu.edu/convocation.
Awards will be presented to faculty members who have distinguished themselves and the university through their commitment to excellence, service, teaching and scholarship. A glance at the honorees:
University Award of Excellence
Supriyo Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D., commonwealth professor, School of Engineering
Bandyopadhyay, named Virginia’s Outstanding Scientist in 2016 by Gov. Terry McAuliffe, leads the Quantum ...
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The National Academy of Medicine today awarded Virginia Commonwealth University psychiatry professor Kenneth S. Kendler, M.D., with the Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health in recognition of his research on the role of genes and environment in the development of psychiatric and substance use disorders.
The award was presented to the director of the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics at the NAM’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Kendler shares the recognition with Kay Jamison, Ph.D., professor of mood disorders at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Jamison is a leading international expert on manic-depressive illness.
“Dr. Jamison and Dr. Kendler have each made tremendous contributions to the field of mental health by ...
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Alexis Edwards, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry. She has always been interested in behavior and completed her Ph.D. in Genetics, working with model systems of aggression. However, she then realized she could translate her work to human behavior. Therefore, her professional and personal passion for understanding the genetic and environmental influences on psychiatric illness led her to pursue her postdoctoral training at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, where she became an Assistant Professor in 2012.
Dr. Edwards’ current research interests involve alcohol use disorder and internalizing disorders, both independently of one another and in shared genetic and environmental liabilities ...
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