Announcements

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!

A position as a research assistant is available at the Personality Psychology, Psychological Assessment, and Behavioural Genetics (3PAG) Lab at Bielefeld University (Germany)

Postdoctoral traineeship at the University of Minnesota focused on genetic and neurobehavioral aspects of addiction and psychopathology.

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.

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%).

Public Health Genetics & Genomics Week will take place May 18–22, 2026, and we invite your organization to join us in highlighting the importance of genetics to public health.

We would like to warmly invite you for the next ISTS webinar, which will be held on June 5 2026.
Speaker: Dr. Shuai Li, Group leader University of Melbourne, Australia
Title: Applications of twin and family studies in understanding causes and causes of variation

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.