Harry Smolker

Harry Smolker is an Assistant Research Professor with the Institute for Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado Boulder. His interdisciplinary research examines how environmental, genetic, and neurobiological factors contribute to individual differences in cognition, emotion, and mental health. He is particularly interested in factors that shape brain structure and function during development and their long-term consequences for behavior. To this end, a major focus of his current research is examining how exposure to air pollution during sensitive developmental periods influences subsequent brain development and mental health decades later in adulthood. Additionally, he is part of a team of researchers who use machine learning and functional MRI to identify brain states associated with the successful removal of information from working memory, as well as with repetitive negative thinking, a form of unsuccessful removal associated with most major psychiatric disorders. Harry received his PhD in Cognitive Psychology and a graduate certificate in Behavioral Genetics from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2020.