Adele Diamond’s unique combination of expertise in developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience led to the creation of an entirely new interdisciplinary field, developmental cognitive neuroscience. Committed to improving children’s lives, Adele Diamond’s research has improved the medical treatment for PKU and ADHD, and is now having a powerful beneficial effect on early childhood education.

------------------

Adele Diamond is a leader in two fields, psychology and neuroscience, and pioneered the creation of a now-flourishing interdisciplinary field, developmental cognitive neuroscience. Throughout her career, she has brought ideas and people together across disciplines. Her graduate work demonstrated that a cognitive advance in human infants was related to the functions of particular brain region, prefrontal cortex. Next her work linked the fields of inborn-errors-of-metabolism and neuropharmacology, changing medical treatment of PKU worldwide, improving thousands of children’s lives. More recently her seminal paper on how the inattentive-type of ADHD differs in its genetic and neural basis, cognitive profile, and responses to medication from the other types of ADHD has given voice to millions with the inattentive-type who felt their needs were not being addressed. Most recently, her findings are affecting educational practice throughout North and South America and Europe. Her rich theoretical insights and methodological advances form the basis of much current research in multiple fields. She is invited to give presentations worldwide to audiences as diverse as neurologists, educators, lawyers, psychoanalysts, geneticists, parents, and the Dalai Lama. Committed to making a difference in children’s lives, Prof. Diamond created and organizes the popular biennial conference in Vancouver, “Brain Development and Learning Conference,” where exciting findings in neuroscience and child development are presented in ways that parents, teachers, and family physicians, can understand, see the relevance of, and use, in an atmosphere of mutual respect.