John C. DeFries (born November 26, 1934) is one of the world's leading

behavior geneticists Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions of individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as well as the inanimate ph ...

. His achievements include being President of the

Behavior Genetics Association The Behavior Genetics Association (BGA) is a learned society established in 1970 that promotes research into the connections between heredity and behavior, both human and animal. Its members support education and training in behavior genetics and ...

(1982–1983) and cofounder of the journal ''

Behavior Genetics Behavioural genetics, also referred to as behaviour genetics, is a field of scientific research that uses genetic methods to investigate the nature and origins of individual differences in behaviour. While the name "behavioural genetics" c ...

'', as well as its co-editor (1970–1978). His awards include the Dobzhansky Award for Outstanding Research in Behavior Genetics (

, 1992), Consulting Editor of the ''

Journal of Learning Disabilities A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: *Bullet journal, a method of personal organization *Diary, a record of personal secretive thoughts and as open book to personal therapy or used to feel connected to onesel ...

'' (1987–2002) and fellowships in the International Academy for Research in Learning Disabilities,

Association for Psychological Science The Association for Psychological Science (APS), previously the American Psychological Society, is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in r ...

, and the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

, Section J (Psychology). His contributions include major

twin Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of Twin Last Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two ...

and adoption studies of cognitive abilities, genetics of learning disabilities, and, when molecular tools became available, pioneering the use of DNA markers to locate genes that influence behavioral characters. At the Institute for Behavioral Genetics at the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University o ...

, DeFries established the world's first large twin study of dyslexia at the Institute for Behavior Genetics in Boulder, and supervised over 17 PhD students. Among his works are a standard text on behavior genetics and original work on behavior-genetic methodology, some of it in collaboration with

David Fulker David William Fulker (8 March 1937 – 9 July 1998) was a British behavioural geneticist at the University of Colorado's Institute for Behavioral Genetics. Among positions of esteem, he was elected president of the Behavior Genetics Associatio ...

. DeFries' articles have been cited over 29,000 times and he has an

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with success indicators such as winning t ...

of 87.

Selected books

*''Behavioral Genetics in the Postgenomic Era'', by Robert Plomin, John C. DeFries, Ian W. Craig, and Peter McGuffin *''Behavioral Genetics'' by Robert Plomin, John C. DeFries,

Gerald E. McClearn Gerald "Jerry" McClearn (July 28, 1927 – January 5, 2017) was an American Behavioral genetics, behavior geneticist and professor emeritus of health and human development and biobehavioral health at the Pennsylvania State University. Education M ...

and Peter McGuffin.

References

External links

DeFries' homepage
* 1934 births Living people American geneticists American Eugenics Society members Behavior geneticists American academic journal editors University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni University of Colorado Boulder faculty Fellows of the Association for Psychological Science Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Dyslexia researchers {{geneticist-stub