April 18, 2017
Colter Mitchell awarded a 2017-2019 Jacobs Foundation Fellowship
The Jacobs Foundation Research Fellowship Program is a globally competitive fellowship program for early and mid-career researchers aiming at improving the development and living conditions of children and youth or contributing to one of the Jacobs Foundation's thematic priorities. This includes, but is not limited to educational sciences, psychology, economics, sociology, family studies, media studies, political sciences, linguistics, neurosciences, and medical sciences. Fellowships are awarded to the most highly talented and innovative young scholars and mid-career researchers working on child and youth development.
Colter's research for the fellowship will explore the mediating and moderating influences of genetic and epigenetic profiles on the relationship between early-life social and economic context on adolescent brain structure (e.g., hippocampal volume, connectivity between the amygdala and the pre-frontal cortex), cognitive and socioemotional development, and academic achievement. Initially this work will rely on data from the United States population-based Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing (FFCW) birth cohort study, but a key goal of this research is to examine the findings from FFCW in studies of different ages and in international contexts.