Dana M. Lapato

Dana M. Lapato, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University's Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics. Her research examines genetic and epigenetic influences on perinatal psychopathology, with particular focus on depression and preterm birth. She leads investigations using multidimensional data from electronic health records, PsychENCODE, PHANTOM, and 1KGP to explore genetic-epigenetic-environmental interactions in complex trait development.

Education includes:

• PhD from Virginia Commonwealth University (2019)
• BA from University of Virginia (2012)

Her research program emphasizes open science methodologies to enhance research reproducibility. Through the Data Science Laboratory at VCU, she conducts academic outreach including the ReproducibiliTea journal club initiative. Research interests span psychiatric epidemiology, ethical data visualization, and bioinformatics tool development.

Recent publications demonstrate strong focus on epigenetic biomarkers in perinatal psychiatry, with DNA methylation studies comprising 80% of recent outputs. Articles investigate methylation patterns in depression phenotypes across perinatal periods, utilizing longitudinal designs and twin studies to disentangle genetic and environmental contributions.

No awards or students are documented in available materials. Laboratory affiliations include the Data Science Laboratory at VCU. Current work involves developing predictive models for perinatal complications using integrated multi-omics approaches.