Clare Mccormack, PhD

My research focuses on women's mental health in pregnancy and the peripartum, and the intergenerational transmission of adversity. I take an interdisciplinary approach to understanding interactions between brain, biology, and the environment in shaping adaptation to parenthood. I have substantial experience in longitudinal pregnancy cohort studies addressing a broad range of factors influencing mental health, from biological to social. I incorporate clinical and behavioral data on maternal health and infant development, while also examining the role of inflammation in the biological embedding of stress and depression physiology. My recent work uses brain MRI during pregnancy to examine neuroplasticity at the transition to parenthood and its implications for maternal and infant health.

I received a PhD in Public Health in 2016 from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Center at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, where I studied alcohol use during pregnancy and infant cognitive development. I then completed an interdisciplinary postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University as a Robert A. Burt Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience.