William Fifer, PhD

I am an established investigator in the fields of developmental psychobiology and perinatal neurobehavior, the laboratory director of a fetal/infant perinatal research laboratory, the Chief of the Division of Developmental Neuroscience at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, and the Associate Director of the Institute for Developmental Sciences at Columbia University Medical Center. My research has focused on the role of adverse environmental exposures in shaping fetal, premature infant, and early childhood physiology and neurobehavior. We investigate the complex interplay genetic and epigenetic vulnerability tied to sleep physiology, patterns of brain activity, attention, and autonomic control, as well as the risk for altered neurodevelopmental trajectories. My laboratory has served as the physiological assessment center for several perinatal cohorts, including the international NIH Safe Passage Study on effects of prenatal exposures to alcohol and smoking on sudden infant death, stillbirth, and neurobehavioral development in South Dakota and South Africa. Other cohort studies have included the NIH ECHO longitudinal study and cohorts in sub-Saharan Africa funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome LEAP Foundation. Currently, our laboratory serves as the core for psychophysiological assessment for the Columbia University Autism Center of Excellence and the NIH HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) study. Our team maintains longstanding collaborations with numerous developmental cohort studies and has cultivated a trusted reputation for working effectively with pediatric populations and their families. In summary, our team has been well-funded and successful in evaluating, implementing, and validating emerging technologies for laboratory and remote collection of biomarkers of sensory function, brain activity, and sleep health.