BSc Hons. (Western University), MS (Pennsylvania State University), PhD (Ohio State University)
View my profile on Google Scholar for a full list of publications.
Canadian Excellence Research Chair in Developmental Science
I am currently recruiting graduate students for Fall 2026.
Research interests
Personalized Education. Most of my work to date has focused on using twin and genomic methods to understand the "nature" and "nurture" of child development. I examine the role of an individual’s genetic variants in predicting school achievement and intervention response. I also spend a lot of time trying to understand the direct role of environments around children, controlling for genetic predispositions. I currently have a US-based national twin project, NatPAT, to examine the genetic and environmental influences on the co-development of reading and math skills through elementary school. Part of this work is to look at the short- and long-term impacts of COVID-19 on those twins reading and math development. I also have a project looking at genomic and contextual correlates of response to a grade 1 reading intervention.
Data Sharing. I work in the field of meta-science, understanding how scientists do science, with a particular interest in supporting rigorous and reproducible educational and developmental science. I currently have project to build a data repository, LDbase, to support the data storage and data access needs of scientists working in fields of developmental science related to education. I also explore ways to support the field in open science practices.
Funding
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)
- National Institutes of Health
- National Science Foundation