Rate My Professor Michael Neale

Michael C. Neale, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychiatry, Human Genetics, and Psychology in the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and Associate Director of the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics. He earned a B.Sc. in Psychology from Bedford College, University of London, in 1980, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, University of London, in 1985, with a thesis on biometrical genetic analysis of human individual differences. Neale's career at VCU includes distinguished professorship and leadership in the NIMH-funded T32 Training Program at VIPBG, where he has mentored over 2,000 researchers through workshops and courses on statistical genetics.

His research specializes in developing and applying statistical methods to dissect genetic and environmental influences on substance use disorders, psychopathology, and neuroscience. Neale developed the Mx software for structural equation modeling in genetic studies and co-developed the open-source OpenMx package, which has been cited more than 3,000 times. Key publications include the book 'Methodology for Genetic Studies of Twins and Families' (1992, with L.R. Cardon), 'Genetic epidemiology of major depression: review and meta-analysis' (2000, with P.F. Sullivan and K.S. Kendler, American Journal of Psychiatry), and contributions to papers on comorbidity models (1995), alcohol dependence genetic factors (2012), and psychiatric disorder genome-wide associations (2013). He has authored hundreds of peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Awards include the VCU Distinguished Scholarship Award (2017), Fulker Award from the Behavior Genetics Association (2019, 2004, 2003), Tanaka Award from the Society for Multivariate Experimental Psychology (2009), NIDA MERIT Award (2005), and James Shields Award for twin studies (2004). Neale served as President of the Behavior Genetics Association (2009-2010) and board member of the Society for Multivariate Experimental Psychology.