Events

GUEST PRESENTER: Sarah Brislin, Ph.D. (Virginia Commonwealth University), will give a job talk titled “Leveraging Information Across Neural, Genetic, and Environmental Indicators to Understand Risk for Externalizing,” from 4:00–5:15 pm. Please note that this event will take place virtually. Contact Sherry Huhn (shuhn@wisc.edu) for the Zoom meeting link.

Bio: Dr. Sarah Brislin is a senior postdoctoral research fellow at the Development, Genes, and Environment Lab (PI: Danielle Dick) at VCU. Previously, she was an NIAAA-funded T32 postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan. Dr. Brislin earned her PhD in clinical psychology at Florida State University and completed an her predoctoral internship at the Minneapolis VA. She is a licensed clinical psychologist in the state of Michigan. Her research examines how neural, genetic, and environmental mechanisms confer risk for externalizing behaviors. This work integrates a wide variety of methodologies – including genetics, psychophysiological methods, and functional neuroimaging. Dr. Brislin is applying for the Assistant Professor position in the social genomics cluster hire.

 Title: Leveraging Information Across Neural, Genetic, and Environmental Indicators to Understand Risk for Externalizing

Summary: Externalizing behaviors such as substance use, aggression, and other antisocial acts exact substantial tangible and intangible costs. My research seeks to characterize transdiagnostic mechanisms that contribute to the development of externalizing behaviors, integrating methods across domains of measurement. In this presentation I will discuss experimental work identifying key neural deficits that distinguish antagonistic from disinhibited externalizing traits. In addition, I will present on recent work integrating known genetic, neural, and environmental risk factors for externalizing disorders to predict risk from adolescence into adulthood. Finally, implications for translation into targeted interventions and treatments will be discussed.

During the academic year 2021–22, ISG and CDHA will host the inaugural “Biodemography across the Life Course” conference on the UW campus. The multiday conference will combine training and research presentations that focus on the integration of biomarker data with social science theory and methods that are grounded in life course theory. Supported by a grant from NIA, the conference will be held annually for the next several years. Stay tuned for more information.