Announcements

A the next special issue in Behavior Genetics is entitled "The Role of Sex in Neurodevelopment".

We welcome papers on a wide array of relevant aspects, including human and animal studies, genetics/genomics, gene expression, proteomics, neuroscience, typical or atypical development, clinical translations, any phase of the lifespan, and any misconceptions regarding female and male neurodevelopment. Behavioral phenotypes of interest for humans include, but are not limited to, any type of communication (both spoken and written; any other forms), verbal and nonverbal cognition, interpersonal behaviors, and social and cultural aspects.

We thank all contributors and attendees of the BGA annual meeting held June 25-28 In Atlanta. Special highlights were a Festschrift in honour of Matt McGue, and a new Presidential Symposium based on the five best abstracts from student members. BGA thanks the local hosts Rohan Palmer and Irwin Waldman, and their team for organising this year’s meeting!

Congratulations to the Award winners!
Paul Lichtenstein: Dobzhansky Award
Sara Jaffee and Deborah Finkel: Editors’ Choice Award
Laurel Raffington: Early Career Award
Sophie Bell: Outstanding Associate Member Oral Presentation Award
Joana Amankwaa: Outstanding Associate Member Poster Presentation Award
Nikolina Nonkovic, Lanie Mullins, Kiana Jodeiry: Rising Star Award

Edit your abstract (Strict Deadline August 1st, 2025):
If you would like to edit your abstract before publication in Behavior Genetics in November of this year, please log in to the Oxford Abstract site: https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/19066/submitter

At BGA 2024 we memorialized the work and scientific life of Peter McGuffin, and his musical legacy. Please find here the link to recording of a memorial speech by Prof. Anita Thapar.

Submit a full paper reporting your research to Behavior Genetics. Manuscripts can be submitted to Behavior Genetics at: https://www.springer.com/journal/10519

The Executive Committee aims to construct a comprehensive list of behavior genetics training programs for 2023-224. Please add yours today!

The University of Oslo is recruiting a Researcher for a project on post-pandemic youth mental health, hosted at PROMENTA Research Center. The role is well suited for an early-stage researcher who wants hands-on experience with large samples of genotyped families—especially MoBa Genetics (n=200K) genotyped trios—combined with rich Norwegian registry linkages. You will work in an interdisciplinary environment focused on understanding heterogeneity in mental-health outcomes following COVID-19, and on identifying risk and resilience factors across young people and their families. Application deadline: 5 March 2026.

The Center for Biomarker Research and Precision Medicine (BPM; https://bpm.pharmacy.vcu.edu/) at Virginia Commonwealth University is seeking a motivated postdoctoral research fellow. Our group conducts large-scale single-nucleus transcriptomic studies using human samples to study the biology of autism, alcohol use disorder, schizophrenia, suicide, and related neuropsychiatric conditions, with the goal of identifying novel drug targets. The fellow will perform statistical and bioinformatics analyses using established pipelines and lead the drafting of manuscripts for publication in leading scientific journals.

This three-year postdoctoral research scientist position is jointly funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Max Planck Society and embedded within the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Psycholinguistics.

The Interplay of Genes and Environment across Multiple Studies (IGEMS) Consortium in coordination with The Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR) at USC seek to hire a post-doctoral scholar for a 2 year tenure with a start date to be determined by the scholar’s needs and current position. This scholar will support a newly awarded NIA grant (R01 AG081248) titled “Country, cohort, and gender disparities in the relationship between education and ADRD” which combines multiple measures of education to explore the education/ADRD relationship, noting that these relationships may vary as a function of diverse social environments—captured in our study as gender, country, and birth-cohort variation.

Dr. Alex P. Miller, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Indiana University School of Medicine, is currently seeking applications from highly motivated candidates for a research postdoctoral fellowship. The full-time research position will primarily focus on the study of genetic and neurobiological influences on the progression of substance use, substance use disorders, and related traits and disorders across the lifespan with a particular focus on the developmental span extending from childhood through young adulthood.

Post-doctoral training opportunities are available through an NIH-funded T32 training grant administered through the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Several investigators may serve as possible mentors for an outstanding candidate who wishes to further their training in behavior genetics. Projects include large human genetics studies, molecular genetics, and mouse behavioral studies aimed understanding genes related to substance use disorders.

We are looking for talented junior scientists to join our International Max Planck Research School for Language Sciences in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Two fully-funded 4-year PhD fellowships (2024-2028) are available to carry out cutting-edge research on genetics and development of human language, with several innovative projects to choose from, co-supervised by leading researchers at the Max Planck Institute and our partners at the Radboud University. Projects include investigating rare DNA variants in genes that cause developmental speech/language disorders, and neuroimaging genomic analyses of language circuits in the brain. Application portal opens Dec 4th 2023 and closes Jan 8th 2024. Full information and FAQ can be found here: https://www.mpi.nl/imprs-phd-fellowships-2024

The Max Planck Research Group Biosocial at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin seeks applicants for 1 Postdoctoral Position (m/f/d) on Developmental Sociogenomics (E 13 TVöD 100%).

The PsychGen Center for Genetic Epidemiology and Mental Health is hosting a two-day, in-person workshop for early-career researchers on family-based genomic analyses. The workshop takes place in Oslo, Norway, on 9-10 April 2026 and registration is now open!

This workshop aims to take a significant step toward an integrative evolutionary approach to psychotherapy, by bringing together clinicians from a variety of evolutionarily-informed perspectives, both cognitive-behavioral and psychodynamic. The goals are to facilitate a deep and constructive dialogue between approaches, make therapists aware of mutually relevant contributions, raise novel questions, and suggest new ideas to explore in the future. The workshop will have a clinical focus; however, several of the speakers also have considerable research experience, and there will be room to discuss the interplay between research and practical applications. If you are already applying evolutionary concepts in your clinical practice, think you would benefit from doing so, or are simply curious—you cannot miss this opportunity!

The conference brings together scientists who are working with TwinLife data or are interested in doing so. We aim to encourage exchange of ideas and discussions on research questions and/or findings, and thus to strengthen and initiate collaborations. You are welcome to present new research ideas, methods, or findings. You can also join the conference without a contribution. There will be plenty of space for discussion and exchange on research topics and methods. You do not have to be a current TwinLife data user to participate!

In recent years, the availability of large-scale genomic data has started to revolutionize our understanding of mental disorders at the genetic level, yet is largely theory-neutral, not explaining why risk alleles persist and mental disorders are so common. Conversely, evolutionary psychiatry and psychopathology offer a rich variety of theoretical models and hypotheses to explain mental disorders at the evolutionary level, but have yet to fully take on board the findings of recent genetics. This disconnection is reinforced by the lack of shared conferences and other spaces for dialogue. And yet, the potential for synergy and cross-fertilization is striking; it is time to break down the existing disciplinary barriers and make decisive steps toward an integrative biology of mental disorders. This workshop will bring together emerging and established investigators working on all aspects of evolutionary psychiatry/psychopathology and the evolutionary genetics/genomics of mental disorders.