Dr. Kim Cornish – Cornish Research Team, McGill University
Dr. Kim Cornish - Outstanding in her field

Dr. Kim Cornish, Director

Dr. Cornish holds the Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Developmental Neuroscience and Education and is based in the Department of Educational Psychology. She also holds professorial positions in the Faculty of Medicine (Neurology/Neurosurgery, Pediatrics and Psychiatry) at McGill, as well as in the Faculty of Education at Zhejiang Normal University, People's Republic of China and the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom. Dr Cornish has over 15 years experience in the field of developmental disorders and in particular Fragile X syndrome, Autism, Down syndrome and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Her research focuses on defining syndrome-specific cognitive and behavioural 'signatures' and charting their developmental trajectories from infancy onwards. To this end, she has worked with collaborators across multiple disciplines (Genetics, Psychiatry, Developmental Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology, Education) and across multiple sites (Canada, USA, Europe – including London, Oxford, Manchester and Nottingham – and P.R. China).

Recent grants from the Canada Research Chairs Program (CRC), the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Fonds Quéébécois de la Recherché sur la Societe et la Culture (FQRSC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH, USA) and the Wellcome Trust (UK), drive this research. Furthermore, many of Dr. Cornish's students have been successfully awarded competitive graduate scholarships from CIHR, SSHRC and FQRSC. These include three prestigious Canada Graduate Scholarship Awards (CGS). At the research level, Dr Cornish and her team publish extensively across a range of journals including the American Journal of Medical Genetic (Neuropsychiatric), Brain, Cortex, Neurology, Neuroreport, Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, Molecular Psychiatry, Neuropsychology and Neuropsychologia. Alongside participation in journal writing, students are expected to present their research findings at conferences world-wide.

At the practical level, Dr. Cornish has worked extensively with educators, clinicians and families to ensure that research findings are disseminated to the public domain where they can benefit the wider community. Please see the new BUILDING LINKS Project – www.buildinglinksproject.ca – for an example of this knowledge transfer. Given the interdisciplinary nature of Dr Cornish's work and her extensive network of collaborators, she welcomes potential students, postdoctoral fellows and junior scientists from the disciplines of education, neuroscience and medicine.