David G. Amaral

David G. Amaral is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine. He serves as the Director of Research at the UC Davis MIND Institute and holds the Beneto Foundation Chair, focusing on autism and neurodevelopmental disorders. His leadership roles include coordinating the Autism Phenome Project and directing Autism BrainNet, a collaborative postmortem brain tissue initiative. From 2015, he has been Editor-in-Chief of Autism Research, the journal of the International Society for Autism Research, and was appointed to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee in 2016.

• Education:
  • B.A., Northwestern University (1968)
  • Ph.D., Neuroscience/Psychology, University of Rochester (1977)
  • Fellowship in Neuroanatomy, Washington University (1980)

His research spans neurobiology, psychiatry, and behavioral neuroscience, with a focus on autism spectrum disorder (ASD). He investigates neurodevelopmental mechanisms, including cortical and amygdala connectivity, metabolomics, and primate models. His work also explores maternal immune activation (MIA) and its impact on neurodevelopment, as well as longitudinal brain growth patterns in ASD.

Dr. Amaral has received prestigious awards, including the NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Award (2008), University of California Distinguished Professor (2009), and Fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (2009). He previously served as President of the International Society for Autism Research (2009).

At the MIND Institute, he leads multidisciplinary teams studying autism through neuroimaging, genetics, and metabolomics. His recent publications emphasize cortical development, neurogenetics, and biomarker discovery in ASD.