Daniele Fallin

Dr. M. Daniele Fallin is the James W. Curran Dean of Public Health at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. With more than 250 scientific publications that have been cited more than 30,000 times, Fallin’s globally-recognized research focuses on applying genetic epidemiology methods to studies of neuropsychiatric disorders including autism, Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder and to developing applications and methods for genetic and epigenetic epidemiology, as applied to mental health and development. She has also worked to promote the integration of mental health into the field of public health.

Fallin has led multiple CDC- and NIH-funded projects regarding how environments, behaviors, genetic variation, and epigenetic variation contribute to risk for psychiatric disease, particularly autism. She currently serves on the Administrative Core of the national Healthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD study), examining brain development from birth to age 10, with specific emphasis on how pre and perinatal environments influence brain development.

Prior to joining Rollins in 2022, Fallin served as chair of the Department of Mental Health, and as the Sylvia and Harold Halpert Professor and Bloomberg Centennial Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she held joint appointments in the Bloomberg School’s Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry. While at the Bloomberg School, Fallin directed the Wendy Klag Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities and previously served as director of the genetic epidemiology area within epidemiology until 2013. 

Fallin was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2023. She completed a Bachelor of Science from the University of Florida–Gainesville and earned a PhD in genetic epidemiology from Case Western Reserve University. 

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