Marla Sokolowski
University Professor, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology University of Toronto
- Toronto ON
Pioneering behavioural geneticist, revealing how genes and environment shape behaviour, famed for discovering the foraging gene.
Media
Social
Biography
Professor Sokolowski is an award winning teacher and highly accomplished lecturer. She has supervised over 20 postdoctoral fellows and 35 graduate students with many of her trainees ascending to prestigious national and international academic positions. She has received Distinguished Visiting Professorships in the US and Europe where she contributes regularly to graduate education.
Professor Sokolowski became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1998 for her pioneering work in the field of Behavioural Genetics and holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Genetics and Behavioural Neurology since 2001. In 2004 she became a Fellow of Massey College and in 2007 she received the Genetics Society of Canada’s Award of Excellence. She co-directs the Child and Brain Development Programme of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research where she is the Weston Fellow. She was the Director of the Life Sciences Division of the Academy of Sciences of the Royal Society of Canada from 2009-2012. She was named a University Professor at University of Toronto in 2010 and was the Academic Director of the Fraser Mustard Institute for Human Development at University of Toronto from 2012 to 2014. In 2013 she was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal.
Industry Expertise
Areas of Expertise
Accomplishments
Canada Research Chair in Genetics and Behavioural Neurology
2014-01-01
Canada Research Chairs Program
The Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal
2012-01-01
To honour significant contributions and achievements by Canadians
University Professor
2010-01-01
University of Toronto
Award of Excellence
2007-01-01
Genetics Society of Canada
Education
University of Toronto
B.S.
Zoology
1977
University of Toronto
Ph.D.
Behavioural Genetics
1981
Affiliations
- Co-Director Canadian Institute for Advanced Research – Child & Brain Development Programme
- Weston Fellow Canadian Institute for Advanced Research
- Fellow Royal Society of Canada
- Senior Fellow Massey College
Media Appearances
Social Interactions Can Alter Gene Expression In Brain, And Vice Versa
Science Daily online
2008-11-07
One such gene, called for (for foraging), was originally discovered in fruit flies by Marla Sokolowski at the University of Toronto ...
Why the first 2,000 days of a child's life are the most important
The Globe and Mail
2012-09-27
We spoke to Lye and the institute’s academic director, geneticist Marla Sokolowski ...
The genes that built a home
National Geographic online
2013-01-16
“It’s great work. There are very few other examples of genes for naturally occurring variation in behaviour,” says Marla Sokolowski, who has found a few in fruit flies ...
How poverty influences a child's brain development
The Globe and Mail
2013-01-25
“The genes, in a sense, are listening to the environment,” says Marla Sokolowski, who specializes in genetics and behavioural neurology at the University of Toronto ...
How childhood experience gets under our skin
The Globe and Mail
2014-02-06
We all have memories of important things that happened to us as children – good and bad experiences that we look back on as formative. What we’re learning is that these early influences can be even more profound than we used to think. Childhood experiences affect the course of our entire lives, from our health to our success to our happiness, and even to how long we’ll live.
Articles
Toward a new biology of social adversity
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences2012
With the advent of industrialization, the forcible employment of children, and the 19th century child labor laws that followed, a broad recognition emerged that even childhood (or perhaps especially childhood) can be “broken” by the adversities of life in a harshly exploitative society.
The biology of social adversity
New Scientist2013
Bad experiences in childhood may scar us – and our descendants – for life. Are we closing in on the biology behind the process?
Genetic and Developmental Origins of Food Preferences and Obesity Risk: The Role of Dopamine
Hormones, Intrauterine Health and Programming2014
Fetal growth and development associates with poor lifetime health outcomes. Despite the strength of the epidemiological evidence, there is little research that describes the functional pathways linking fetal development to brain-based disorders and metabolic health.
The interplay of birth weight, dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4), and early maternal care in the prediction of disorganized attachment at 36 months of age
Development and Psychopathology2015
Disorganized attachment is an important early risk factor for socioemotional problems throughout childhood and into adulthood. Prevailing models of the etiology of disorganized attachment emphasize the role of highly dysfunctional parenting, to the exclusion of complex models examining the interplay of child and parental factors.
Genetic Differential Susceptibility to Socioeconomic Status and Childhood Obesogenic Behavior
JAMA Pediatrics2016
Genes may work by modulating the way individuals respond to environmental variation, and these discrete and differential genes vs environmental interactions may not be readily captured in simple association studies.
