Jack Blanchard

Jack Blanchard is an Associate Provost and Professor at the University of Maryland, specializing in the psychopathology of schizophrenia and schizotypy. His research focuses on emotional, social, and neurocognitive changes in these disorders, particularly how motivation, pleasure deficits, and affective traits relate to social dysfunction and cognitive impairment. His lab, the Laboratory of Emotion and Psychopathology, investigates hedonic capacity as a genetic marker for schizophrenia and develops new assessment tools for negative symptoms. Key projects include studying ventral striatal reactivity to social rewards and the impact of sleep problems on psychosis symptomatology.

Research interests include schizophrenia and severe mental illness, social affiliation dynamics, paranoia mechanisms, and clinical assessment methodologies. Blanchard has pioneered instruments like the Clinical Assessment Interview for Negative Symptoms (CAINS) and the Motivation and Pleasure Scale–Self-Report (MAP-SR). His work integrates neuroimaging (e.g., fMRI studies of reward processing), behavioral experiments, and longitudinal community studies.

Recent projects explore pandemic effects on social relationships, transdiagnostic models of motivation deficits, and interventions to improve community participation among veterans with schizophrenia. His research emphasizes translational applications to improve clinical assessment and treatment strategies for psychosis spectrum disorders.