April 04, 2024
Kenneth S. Kendler, PhD
Medical College of Virginia of Virginia Commonwealth University
Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics
Department of Psychiatry
Bio-Technology Research Park, Building One
800 E. Leigh Street, Suite 100
Richmond, VA 23298
Dear Prof. Kenneth Kendler,
I am writing to apply for the tenure-eligible faculty position in Psychiatric Genetics at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics (VIPBG), Department of Psychiatry in response to your recent advertisement on the VIPBG website (URL: https://vipbg.vcu.edu/about/employment-opportunities/). I am very excited about this opportunity as I share VIPBG’s research interest in understanding the behavioral and molecular aspects of psychiatric and drug use disorders. I believe my collective experiences would strongly complement and synergize with ongoing research endeavors within your department.
My education and career have given me opportunities to train in Africa, Europe, and the United States. My pre-doctoral, doctoral, and post-doctoral training have focused on schizophrenia spectrum disorders and major depressive disorder. I received my doctoral degree at the University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, with a concentration in Psychiatric and Genetic Epidemiology. My thesis work focused on dissecting the phenotypic and biological heterogeneity of schizophrenia spectrum disorders using the Genetic Risk and Outcome of Psychosis (GROUP) cohort dataset – a 10-year longitudinal family-based cohort study in the Netherlands and Belgium. To achieve my objectives, I have used a combination of sub-phenotyping, polygenic/exposome risk scoring, and data-driven approaches. In addition, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Maastricht University, Department of Quantitative Economics, where my research focused on developing a data-driven decision-making model to select personalized treatment for patients with major depressive disorder in the Netherlands. Through this experience, I collaborated with multidisciplinary investigators from different institutes, presented research findings at national and international scientific meetings, and published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles, including one book chapter.
Currently, I am conducting post-doctoral research at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) in Dr. Fasil Tekola-Ayele’s Genetic Epidemiology Lab. My research focuses on maternal genetic and epigenetic susceptibility to cardiometabolic disorders and its impact on fetal growth, using the NICHD Fetal Growth Studies nationwide multiancestral cohort dataset. By leveraging summary statistics from the latest genome-wide association study of type 2 diabetes, I demonstrated that maternal genetic ancestry similarity modifies the association between maternal genetic risk score of type 2 diabetes and fetal growth. The result of this work is currently under review in the Human Genomics journal. As an independent investigator, I plan to use genome- and epigenome-wide association approaches to unlock genetic and epigenetic factors linked with fetal growth variation and adult-onset diseases. I also collaborated to conduct multi-omics study that integrated genomic, epigenomic and proteomic datasets to investigate the developmental origin of chronic diseases in late life. By expanding the existing knowledge base, my long-term goal is to establish links between early-life risks exposures and long-term development of schizophrenia and drug use disorders by harnessing the power of multi-omics and epidemiological data.
In addition to my research strengths, I have a long-standing and dedicated interest in teaching and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students. I have taught college and graduate-level courses at the University of Groningen, Maastricht University, and Debre Birhan University, where I served as a Lecturer and Tutor. I have also actively sought opportunities to mentor postbac students at NICHD.
I have enclosed my curriculum vitae for detailed information on my academic achievements. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you in the future.
Sincerely,
Tesfa D. Habtewold, PhD
