Dr. Levitt received his BA in Biological Sciences from the University of Chicago, PhD in Neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Neuroscience at Yale University. Dr. Levitt has held leadership positions at University of Pittsburgh, Vanderbilt University and University of Southern California. Dr. Levitt was elected as a member into the prestigious Institute of Medicine (IOM), part of the National Academy of Sciences. Named a McKnight Foundation Scholar in 2002, Dr. Levitt also was a MERIT awardee from the National Institute of Mental Health and served as a member of the National Advisory Mental Health Council for the National Institute of Mental Health. He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Chair-elect of the Neuroscience Division of the AAAS, and an elected member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Developing Child at Harvard University, and serves as Scientific Director of the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, a policy council that brings the best research from child development and neuroscience to assist policy makers and business leaders in making wise program investment decisions. He is a member of a number of scientific advisory boards for foundations and university programs, served as Senior Editor for Journal of Neuroscience, and currently serves on the editorial boards of eLife, Neuron, Cerebral Cortex, Autism Research, Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Disease Models and Mechanisms. Dr. Levitt’s research focuses on the development of brain architecture that controls learning, emotional and social behavior. His research focuses on genetic and environment factors that increase risk for neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders, such as autism and schizophrenia. His clinical research studies address autism heterogeneity by studying children with autism who also have co-occurring medical conditions, such as gastrointestinal disorders, with the goal of developing better diagnostic criteria and personalized treatments. He has published over 250 papers.