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Mary Waldron, PhD
Current
Position
Adjunct Assistant Professor in Psychiatry
Education and Training
Ph.D. Clinical Psychology
Areas of Clinical Interest
Child/adolescent cognitive-behavioral therapy; family therapy; child assessment; pediatric consultation-liaison
Areas of Research Interests
My research integrates developmental and clinical science using genetically-informed methodology to study how genes, environments, and their interaction contribute to offspring risk. Substantively, my current work focuses on family formation and dissolution risks associated with substance use disorder (SUD) and consequences for offspring of substance abusing/dependent parents, particularly during the adolescent years. My interests in methodology include both between- and within-family research in the form of twin and extended twin-family designs, including classical twin, parents-of-twins, and children-of-twins studies. Using genetically-informed methods, my research goals are to move beyond simple partitioning of variation into genetic and environmental components to address the complex interplay of genes and environment contributing to offspring risk for a range of difficulties, including very early onset substance use and sexual initiation.