Brett Kia-Keating is a Lecturer in the Department of Education at UC Santa Barbara's School of Education. His research focuses on genetic and environmental contributors to developmental psychopathology and problem behaviors, with special interests in longitudinal research that investigates the course of both healthy and maladaptive development to identify both protective factors and risk factors.  He studies how the individual, family, peer group, school, and community interact to put children at greater or lesser risk of unhealthy psychosocial development. His findings are intended to inform treatment and prevention efforts in school, community, and clinical settings, with his primary interest being the understanding and prevention of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders.  Brett earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology at Hope College and a master’s degree in counseling psychology at Northwestern University. After working in the field as a therapist with incarcerated violent juvenile offenders, he attended Harvard University, where he completed both a master’s degree in developmental research methodology and a doctoral degree in human development and psychology, with a focus on risk and prevention for school aged children and adolescents. He then completed postdoctoral training in psychiatric genetic epidemiology and behavioral genetics at the Center for Behavioral Genomics at UC San Diego.