Matthew Halvorsen

Matthew Halvorsen, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics at the UNC School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research focuses on identifying genetic contributions to psychiatric disorders, particularly Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Tourette Syndrome, using genomic approaches like exome sequencing, genome-wide association studies (GWAS), and transcriptome analysis. He investigates the role of rare and common genetic variants, including de novo mutations, and their effects on neurodevelopmental pathways.

• Recipient of an R21 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) for collaborative research on Tic Disorders.
• Active in large-scale genetic studies involving Scandinavian cohorts, integrating case/control data to accelerate risk gene discovery.

Research Interests:

• Functional effects of genetic variants on the developing nervous system transcriptome
• Role of de novo mutations in psychiatric disorders
• Integration of whole exome and genome data for disease risk assessment

Grants & Funding:

• R21 Grant (NIMH) – "Acceleration of risk gene discovery for Tic Disorders through large-scale collaboration"

Labs/Teams: Directs a genetics research lab focused on psychiatric disorder genomics, collaborating with international clinician networks for data collection and analysis.