INRICH Member Profile Card

Erin Dunn

Erin Dunn

Massachusetts General Hospital, Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit


Erin C. Dunn is a social and psychiatric epidemiologist with expertise in genetics. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). She also holds an appointment in the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. Dr. Dunn received a Doctor of Science in 2011 from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She trained under Drs. Karestan Koenen, Subu Subramanian, Felton Earls, and Katherine Masyn. Dr. Dunn also completed post-doctoral research training at MGH under Drs. Jordan Smoller and Jonathan Rosand. Dr. Dunn’s work has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.


Type of member: Regular (since 2017)


Telephone: 617-726-9387

Email Address: edunn2@mgh.harvard.edu

Website Address: http://www.thedunnlab.com/

Mailing Address: Massachusetts General Hospital, Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit, Center for Human Genetic Research, Simches Research Building, 185 Cambridge Street, Boston, MA 02114


Current research interests
Dr. Dunn’s research is centered on using cross-disciplinary approaches to better understand the social and genetic factors that influence the etiology of mental health problems. She focuses mainly on depression and anxiety among women, children, adolescents and other vulnerable populations (i.e., racial/ethnic minorities; individuals of low socioeconomic status). The long-term goal of her work is to identify the causal mechanisms underlying risk for depression, develop population-based strategies for prevention, and target these strategies to periods in development when they could have greatest impact.


Selected publications

Carliner, H., Keyes, K.M., McLaughlin, K.A., Meyers, J.L., Dunn, E.C., & Martins, S.S. (2016). Childhood trauma and illicit drug use in adolescence: A population-based National Comorbidity Survey Replication-Adolescent Supplement Study. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 55 (8), 701-708. PMCID: PMC4964281. PMID: 27453084.

Dunn, E.C., Busso, D.S., Raffeld, M.R., Smoller, J.W., Nelson, C.A., Doyle, A.E., & Luk, G. (2016) Does developmental timing of exposure to child maltreatment predict memory performance in adulthood? Results from a large, population-based sample. Child Abuse and Neglect, 51, 181- 191. PMCID: PMC4713298. PMID: 26585216

Dunn, E.C., Wiste, A., Radmanesh, F., Almli, L.M., Gogarten, S.M., Sofer, T., Faul, J.D., Kardia, S.L.R., Smith, J.A., Weir, D.R., Zhao, W., Mirza, S.S., Hek, K., Tiemier, H.W., Goveas, J.S., Sarto, G.E., Snively, B.M., Cornelis, M., Koenen, K.C., Kraft, P., Purcell, S., Kessler, K.J., Rosand, J., Wassertheil-Smoller, S., & Smoller, J.W. (2016). Genome-wide association study (GWAS) and genome-wide environment interaction study (GWEIS) of depressive symptoms in African American and Hispanic women. Depression and Anxiety, 33 (4), 265-280. PMCID: PMC4826276. PMID: 27038408.

Pabayo, R., Dunn, E.C., Gilman, S.E., Kawachi, I., Molnar, B.E. (2016). Income inequality within urban settings and depressive symptoms among adolescents. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 70 (10), 997-1003. PMID: 27103664

Wang, Y., Raffeld, M.R., Slopen, N., Hale, L., & Dunn, E.C. (2016). Childhood adversity and insomnia in adolescence. Sleep Medicine, 21, 12-18. PMCID: PMC4964593. PMID: 27448466

profile updated: 06/16/2017