Dr. Barry Lester

Biography

Barry M. Lester is a Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior as well as Pediatrics at Brown Alpert Medical School and is the Director of the Brown Center for the Study of Children at Risk, associated with Women & Infants Hospital. His research is largely federally funded and he has been actively involved in the NIH peer review process, serving on various study sections and councils. He has authored over 250 peer-reviewed publications and 100 book chapters. His research interests focus on understanding the developmental outcomes of children at risk due to a variety of biological and social factors, including prenatal substance exposure, maternal depression, and poverty. Lester's work involves a broad range of developmental outcomes, including neurodevelopmental and cognitive deficits, as well as social-emotional development and antisocial behavior. He employs cross-cultural designs to study the interplay between biological and social risks, aiming to understand the mechanisms determining developmental outcomes. His current research emphasizes how prenatal and postnatal environments can alter behavior through epigenetic mechanisms, ultimately driving his efforts towards developing preventive interventions to mitigate adverse outcomes for children.

Research Interests