Published: May 23, 2019

Dr. Matthew Keller's research bridges behavioral, evolutionary, and statistical genetics to elucidate the genetic underpinnings of psychiatric disorders and individual differences. Over the past two years, he has published 24 peer-reviewed journal articles, many of those in the top journals in his field (Nature Genetics, Nature Human Behavior, Bioinformatics, Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, Biological Psychiatry); he gave 4 invited talks and 3 standard conference presentations, in addition to co-authoring student presentations; and he is PI, Co-PI, or Co-I on 4 NIH R-grants, totaling over $5 million in direct costs. He is highly productive, but more importantly, his work is highly impactful with respect to both theory and methods. His recently published work includes substantial methodological contributions: for example, comparing methods for using whole genome data to estimate heritability and genetic architecture (published in 2018 in Nature Genetics); and developing methods for quantifying assortative mating with whole-genome data (published in 2018 in Nature Human Behavior). His dedication to replicability is also evident, with four papers in the last two years that speak to the lack of replication of candidate-gene and candidate-gene-by-environment interaction effects in large samples. For these contributions and others, Dr. Keller deserves to win the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Research award for 2018.