From the Director

The Institute for Behavioral Genetics is a center of excellence and outstanding accomplishment in graduate education, research training, and the creation of new research knowledge about genetic and environmental influences on human individual differences. Each year, IBG faculty fellows, researchers, and students publish upwards of one hundred refereed papers and book chapters that contribute critical new knowledge on the genetic and environmental influences on behavior. This research productivity is supported by external grants that are awarded through a highly competitive national peer review process. IBG researchers typically hold multiple individual research grants totaling around $10 million dollars per year. As much of our funding derives from the National Institutes of Health, whose budget is facing tight constraints, we may anticipate that the competition for these awards will only intensify. However, we have set ourselves a continuing goal to expand our research through interdisciplinary collaborations with academic units on the Boulder campus, across campuses, and nationally.

The Institute holds two separate training grants awarded by the National Institute on Mental Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Together these awards allow the Institute to fully support 9 graduate students and 3 postdoctoral trainees in behavior genetics. IBG also hosts an annual training workshops in statistical methods in human genomics research supported by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Our excellence in research and training is a consequence of the efforts of all of our faculty, staff, and students. They consistently demonstrate superb scientific performance and integrity as well as the collegiality that remains a distinguishing characteristic of IBG.

Matthew C. Keller
Director, IBG