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Dr. Joan Luby is a Professor of Child Psychiatry and Director and Founder of the Early Emotional Development Program at Washington University in St. Louis. She received her Medical Degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine in Michigan and completed her Residency in Psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine. Afterwards, Joan went on to do a Fellowship in Child Psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine before coming to St. Louis. Joan has received many awards and honors throughout her career, including the Academic Women’s Network Mentor of the Year Award, the CHADS Coalition for Mental Health Research Award, and the NARSAD Gerald Klerman Award for Outstanding Clinical Research in Depression. Joan is with us today to tell us about her journey through life and science.
The Early Emotional Development Program (EEDP) is a clinical research program that focuses on the development and treatment of affective disorders in young children. Dr. Luby’s clinical work and NIMH and NARSAD and CHAD and Baer funded research focuses more specifically on infant/preschool mood disorders, particularly depression, clinical characteristics, biological markers and alterations in the emotional development of young children associated with early onset mood disorders. Investigations of alterations in brain development in children with early onset depression in collaboration with colleagues, Drs. Deanna Barch and Kelly Botteron have been a primary focus of the program. Dr. Luby’s contributions include the first large scale empirical studies that have established the criteria for identification, validation and clinical characteristics as well as longitudinal course of depressive syndromes in the preschool age group as well as studies in humans showing the effect of parental nurturance and early experiences of poverty on brain development. Dr. Luby has published extensively in numerous general and child psychiatric journals on the issue of preschool mood disorders and young child psychopathology.