Frances Champagne

Interests

Gene-environment interplay, developmental trajectories, epigenetic inheritance, social neuroscience

Biography

Dr. Champagne is accepting doctoral students in Fall 2019.

After completing a B.A. in Psychology at Queen’s University (Canada), I delved into the genetic and environmental risk factors in psychopathology at McGill University in the M.Sc. program in Psychiatry.  I then started a Ph.D. in Neuroscience at McGill University examining the role of mother-infant interactions in shaping the brain.  In 2004, I received a fellowship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to conduct postdoctoral research at Cambridge University (UK), examining the role of imprinted genes in development and social behavior.  From 2006-2017, I was a faculty in the Department of Psychology at Columbia University and established a research group examining the epigenetic influence of early life experiences.  My interests focus on the interplay between genes and environment that shape neural and behavioral outcomes and the implications of this dynamic interplay for inheritance of traits. 

I am currently teaching Ethics, Genetics and the Brain.

Courses

Publications

Mashoodh R, Habrylo IB, Gudsnuk KM, Pelle G, Champagne FA (2018) Maternal modulation of paternal effects on offspring development. Proc Biol Sci 285(1874).

Curley JP, Mashoodh, R, Champagne FA (2017) Transgenerational Epigenetics. In Handbook of Epigenetics: The New Molecular and Medical Genetics (2nd Edition). Academic Press.

Nätt D, Barchiesi R, Murad J, Feng J, Nestler EJ, Champagne FA, Thorsell A (2017) Perinatal Malnutrition Leads to Sexually Dimorphic Behavioral Responses with Associated Epigenetic Changes in the Mouse Brain. Sci Rep 7(1):11082.

Champagne FA (2016) Epigenetic legacy of parental experiences: Dynamic and interactive pathways to inheritance. Dev Psychopathol 28(4pt2):1219-1228.

Monk C, Feng T, Lee S, Krupska I, Champagne FA, Tycko B (2016) Distress during pregnancy: Epigenetic regulation of placenta glucocorticoid-related genes and fetal neurobehavior. Am J Psychiatry 173(7):705-13.

Rubenstein DR, Skolnik H, Berrio A, Champagne FA, Phelps S, Solomon J (2016) Sex-specific fitness effects of unpredictable early life conditions are associated with DNA methylation in the avian glucocorticoid receptor. Molecular Ecology 25(8):1714-28.

Miller RL, Yana Z, Mahera C, Zhanga H, Gudsnuk K, McDonalde J, Champagne FA (2016) Impact of prenatal polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon exposure on behavior, cortical gene expression, and DNA methylation of the Bdnf gene.  Neuroepigenetics 5: 11-18.