Bernie Devlin

Bernie Devlin is a Professor of Psychiatry and Clinical and Translational Science at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He holds a Ph.D. in Botany from Penn State University (1986) and a B.S. in Biology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (1976). His research focuses on statistical methods for genetic analysis and their application to neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and schizophrenia. He has been a faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh since 1997, previously holding roles at Yale University and Carnegie Mellon University.

Dr. Devlin’s work bridges computational genetics and clinical psychiatry, emphasizing methodological innovation in large-scale genomic studies. His lab collaborates with Kathryn Roeder’s group at Carnegie Mellon University, focusing on transcriptomics, rare variant analysis, and neurobiological mechanisms. Key contributions include identifying risk loci for OCD, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease, with over 30 years of experience in psychiatric genetics.

His awards include AAAS Fellowship (2009), NIMH MERIT Award (2013), and recognition from the FBI for DNA analysis contributions (1988–1998). He directs the Program in Computational Genetics at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, leading a team including Lambertus Klei and Haeun Moon. His research also addresses health equity in polygenic risk scoring and cross-population genomic analysis.

Dr. Devlin’s lab integrates statistical genetics and neurobiology, with active projects on autism’s allelic architecture, OCD transcriptomics, and neurodegenerative disease mechanisms. Current efforts emphasize refining methods for analyzing rare variants and improving diagnostic workflows using genomic data.