About Us

The Population, Neurodevelopment and Genetics Program (PNG) is a pioneer and leader in forging linkages across disciplinary perspectives. In addition to the program’s current effort to link developmental, cognitive, clinical, public health, and educational science with neurobiology and genetics, we continue to expand our portfolio and involve new research scholars in other health- and development-related topics from prenatal/infancy through adolescence and on to adulthood and aging, (e.g., cognition, substance use, mental health, problem behavior, environmental toxicants), providing opportunities for synergy and integration of new ideas in the relevant fields.

Faculty

Adriene Beltz

Research Professor

Pamela Davis-Kean

Research Professor

Luke Hyde

Professor

Daniel Keating

Research Professor

Helen Meier

Research Assistant Professor

Colter Mitchell

Research Associate Professor

Christopher Monk

Research Professor

Fred Morrison

Research Professor Emeritus

Jennifer A. Smith

Research Associate Professor

Erin Ware

Research Associate Professor

Post-Doctoral Fellows

Liang Chen

Liang Chen obtained his Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from The Ohio State University focusing on urban data science, urban housing and land-use policies, and neighborhood development. Collaborating closely with Dr. Meier, Liang is now actively engaged in a captivating research project exploring historic housing policies and their profound impact on health outcomes.

Research Staff

Edward Huntley

Edward Huntley is a Research Area Specialist Senior at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. He earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at American University in 2012 and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in clinical psychology and behavioral sleep medicine in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan in 2014. His clinical work has focused primarily on evidence based interventions for insomnia, circadian rhythm disorders, and other sleep disorders across the developmental spectrum and well as the treatment of anxiety and depression in youth and adults. His research has focused on neurocognitive sequelae of disrupted sleep in youth with chronic medical illness (e.g., obstructive sleep apnea, HIV and functional abdominal pain) and circadian and sleep mechanisms associated with the etiology and treatment depression and PTSD in young adults. His current interest include adolescent health, health risk behaviors, circadian and sleep mechanisms associated with the etiology psychopathology and evidence based interventions for health promotion.

Trey Smith

Trey Smith is a Bioinformatician / Computational Biologist Associate in the Population, Neurodevelopment and Genetics Program. In his role, he helps to investigate social, genetic, and epigenetic factors with faculty and performs data management, integration, and analysis of social, health, and genetic/epigenomic measures.

Joshua Goode

Joshua A. Goode holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Colorado Boulder. He completed his postdoctoral training at the Population Studies Center and Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan, where he investigated how early social environments become biologically embedded to influence health trajectories across the life course. As a bioinformatician in the Population, Neurodevelopment and Genetics Program, Dr. Goode integrates and analyzes large-scale multi-omics data to investigate the biological pathways linking social and environmental factors to health. He also applies advanced machine learning techniques to develop novel biomarkers of social exposures, develops research tools such as R packages and data products, and enjoys mentoring junior researchers in bioinformatics and computational methods.

Devin McNulty

Devin McNulty is a Research Area Specialist in the PNG and Social Environment and Health programs. He contributes to research projects involving genomics, dementia, biomarkers of aging, immunology and the social environment by performing quality control, large-scale data processing and statistical analyses. He specializes in open and reproducible programming methods and data visualization.

Administrative Staff

Nick Prieur

Nicholas Prieur is a Research Process Senior Manager and he serves as PNG’s overall research administrator. In his role he manages all pre-award research activities, financials, HR transactions, restricted project data contracts, IRB’s, and other program needs. He also leads the program’s shared administrative team, with specializations in post award, editing, publication production, social media, website maintenance and computing support. He received his BS from Michigan State University in 2002.

Amanda Donovan

Amanda Donovan is a project coordinator for PNG, where she assists with post-award project and financial management. She received her BA in Russian Language and Literature from Michigan State University in 2008.

Rachel Oeffner

Rachel Oeffner is a Research Administrator Lead for the PNG program. She graduated with a bachelors in Sport Management from Bowling Green State University in 2014 and a Master of Business Administration from Spring Arbor University in 2018. She works with faculty and staff on pre- and post-award activities.

Abigail Weigel

Abigail Weigel is a Wisconsin native who has joined the PNG program as an Administrative Assistant Senior, where she assists the program with broad based administrative duties in support of the overall research portfolio. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point with a BS in Wildlife Ecology in 2014. Before joining the University, she gained administrative experiences in the wildlife, equine and veterinary medicine fields. In her spare time she enjoys adventuring with her horse Kozy and her Labrador Retriever Nash.

The University of Michigan Population, Neurodevelopment and Genetics program
Survey Research Center
Institute for Social Research

426 Thompson Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248
(734) 647-1499