LEONARD ABBEDUTO, PH.D., a nationally recognized researcher and a leader in improving the lives of children and adults with neurodevelopmental disabilities, is the new director of the UC Davis MIND Institute and the holder of the Tsakopoulos-Vismara Endowed Chair in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the UC Davis School of Medicine.

Dr. Abbeduto will oversee more than 250 faculty, staff, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students focused on understanding, preventing and treating neurological disorders that arise during early childhood development, including autism, fragile X syndrome, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Tourette syndrome and 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. At the institute, Dr. Abbeduto directs cutting-edge research, comprehensive educational programs to train the next generation of clinicians and scientists, innovative clinical services to diagnose and treat children, and extensive community engagement activities.

Dr. Abbeduto is a leading expert on the behavioral growth of individuals with intellectual disabilities, particularly their development and use of language. His research focuses on the language and communication challenges faced by individuals with fragile X syndrome, the most common known cause of inherited intellectual disability and the leading single-gene cause of autism. Dr. Abbeduto also investigates the effects of stress on parents and caregivers who raise children with neurodevelopmental disorders and how their stress affects the behavior and development of their children.

Before joining the MIND Institute, Dr. Abbeduto was the Charles J. Anderson Professor of Education and associate director for Behavioral Sciences at the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. While at the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Abbeduto was director of the Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities at the Waisman Center and was director of both the Research Participation Core and the Postdoctoral Training Program in Developmental Disabilities. He joined the faculty of the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1982, serving as its chair from 2000 to 2004. Dr. Abbeduto received his undergraduate, master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Dr. Abbeduto is the recipient of the 2010 Enid and William Rosen Research Award for outstanding contributions to understanding fragile X syndrome from the National Fragile X Foundation. He is the recipient of the University of Wisconsin’s Emil H. Steiger Distinguished Teaching Award and the Distinguished Faculty Award from the University of Wisconsin’s School of Education. Dr. Abbeduto is a fellow of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. He is the author of more than 100 research papers, books and book chapters and has made numerous presentations throughout the nation and the world.