Rate My Professor Graeme Fairchild

Graeme Fairchild is Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath. He holds a PhD in Psychiatry from Newcastle University, awarded in 2004 for his thesis entitled 'Glucocorticoid modulation of the serotonergic dorsal raphe nucleus'. His research examines the neurobiological bases of antisocial behaviour and violence in adolescence, the development of the brain during childhood and adolescence, sex differences in antisocial behaviour and psychopathology, and the impact of trauma and adversity on the developing brain and risk for psychopathology. Fairchild coordinates and delivers teaching on the Developmental Psychopathology and Biological Psychology modules within the Psychology undergraduate programme. He is affiliated with the Bath Anxiety and Mood Research Group and the Bath Institute for the Augmented Human.

Fairchild's research has been funded by the European Commission, Medical Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council, Wellcome Trust, British Academy, and Kids Company. Major projects include the multi-site FemNAT-CD study across several European countries to understand the causes of sex differences in antisocial behaviour in children and adolescents, and the English and Romanian Adoptees’ Brain Imaging Study (ERABIS), which investigates the long-term consequences of institutional deprivation on brain development, activity, connectivity, and mechanisms of resilience. Key publications include 'Dimensional Associations Between Conduct Problems and Brain Structure Across 18 International Cohorts in ENIGMA' (2026, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry), 'Altered Neural Responses to Punishment Learning in Conduct Disorder' (2025, Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging), 'Associations between childhood trauma and adolescent psychiatric disorders in Brazil: a longitudinal, population-based birth cohort study' (2025, The Lancet Global Health), 'Beyond hostility: exploring facial emotion recognition biases in youths with conduct disorder' (2025, European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry), and 'Biological pathways underlying the relationship between childhood maltreatment and Multimorbidity: A two-step, multivariable Mendelian randomisation study' (2025, Brain Behavior and Immunity). He accepts doctoral students in these research areas.