A funded PhD studentship is available at the CEN, starting October 2022, to work on a project investigating the interconnected influences of DNA sequence variation and environmental influences on children’s development. The studentship is funded by the Bloomsbury Colleges scheme. If you are interested in applying, see here. Deadline for applications is: 19th June, 2022.

Project details: It is known that DNA sequence variation and pre- and post-natal environmental factors — and their interplay — explain individual differences in development and behaviour. Despite recent progress in the identification of specific genetic influences important for development, causal paths remain uncertain. In part, this is because environmental research often fails to account for the presence of genetic confounding, and in part because genetic research fails to incorporate mechanistically plausible environments.

The proposed studentship will build on recent theoretical and technical advances to better understand the causal paths of parent-child and child-parent effects, which will have important implications for personalised genomics, education and social policy.