Held by Heather Volk
Dr. HEATHER VOLK has directed the Bloomberg School’s Wendy Klag Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities since 2022 and co-directs the NIMH Psychiatric Epidemiology Training Grant Program. She also co-directs the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center at Kennedy Krieger Institute. Her pathbreaking work on the epigenetic connections between prenatal air pollution exposure and risk of autism earned Dr. Volk recognition as a 2023 finalist for the JHU President’s Frontier Award. With joint appointments in Epidemiology as well as Environmental Health and Engineering, Dr. Volk incorporates insights from biostatistics, environmental epidemiology, toxicology, psychiatry, pharmacology, and human genetics to investigate the role of prenatal and early life environmental exposures on childhood neurodevelopment.
Dr. Volk has published over 90 articles and book chapters. She serves on the editorial boards of the journals Environmental Health Perspectives and Current Environmental Health Reports. Her research on air pollution exposure and autism risk has been featured by numerous national and international media outlets. She received her BA in pre-professional studies from the University of Notre Dame, an MPH from Boston University, and a PhD in epidemiology from Saint Louis University. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship in Environmental Genomic Analysis and Interpretation at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, she was assistant professor of research preventive medicine in the Keck School from 2010 to 2015, with joint appointments in the Saban Research Institute at Children’s Hospital, Los Angeles, and the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute.
Dr. Volk is a phenomenal collaborator and mentor who is well qualified to advance the research and teaching mission of our School and the Department of Mental Health.