Kathleen Merikangas

Kathleen Ries Merikangas is the Chief of the Genetic Epidemiology Research Branch in the Intramural Research Program at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and an adjunct professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

[2] Merikangas earned her bachelor's degree summa cum laude in experimental psychology and music from University of Notre Dame in 1973.

She earned her Ph.D. in chronic disease epidemiology from University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health in 1981, focusing on conducting clinical research on the affective disorders.

[1] The perspectives article titled "The Future of Genetic Studies of Complex Human Diseases" that appeared in journal Science in 1996, which she co-authored with Neil Risch, has been cited more than 3,000 times.

[1][6][7] Her 2011 study on shyness and social phobia of American teenagers attracted huge media attention.