THE RESEARCHERS

Dr. Steven Hamilton: Dr. Hamilton is a psychiatrist and geneticist at the University of California, San Francisco. He received his PhD in Biological Chemistry and MD from the University of California, Los Angeles.  He was a psychiatry resident and research fellow at Columbia University.  Dr. Hamilton's research focuses on identifying the genetic determinants of behavior.  More information about projects in the laboratory can be found here.

Jennifer S. Yokoyama: Ms. Yokoyama is a PhD candidate in the Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacogenomics program at UCSF. She received a bachelor’s degree in Molecular and Cell Biology with an emphasis in Genetics and Development from the University of California, Berkeley. As a graduate student in the Hamilton lab, her dissertation work concerns the genetic and biological background of noise phobia in dogs. Jennifer is also investigating the genetics of several other complex diseases such as adult-onset deafness and epilepsy.

Carolyn Erdman

COLLABORATORS

Dr. Mark Neff

Alison Ruhe (UC Davis)

Dr. Hannes Lohi (Univ Helsinki). Laboratory website can be found here.

Dr. Katriina Tiira (Univ Helsinki)

FORMER RESEARCHERS

Dr. Melanie Lee Chang: Dr. Chang is a former postdoctoral scholar in Dr. Hamilton's laboratory at UCSF.  She holds PhDs in physical anthropology and ecology/evolutionary biology from the University of Pennsylvania, with primary research interests in systematics and phylogenetically-informed reconstructions of character evolution and population history.  Dr. Chang's primary canine projects included investigating within-breed stratification due to divergent breeding regimes and investigating the genetic background of noise phobia in Border Collies.  She has three Border Collies of her own, Solo, Fly, and Jett, with whom she has trained and competed in agility, flyball, and sheepdog trialing.  Dr. Chang is an avid amateur photographer. Her dogs have their own home page here.