Rebecca Schmidt, PhD

Picture of Dr. Schmidt

Position Title
Associate Professor

  • Public Health Sciences
Bio

Dr. Rebecca Schmidt is a molecular epidemiologist that aims to advance understanding of how early life environmental exposures interact with genetic susceptibility and molecular mechanisms to influence neurodevelopmental outcomes of children, with a primary interest in autism spectrum disorders. 

Dr. Schmidt's research goal is to advance understanding of how environmental exposures, primarily those occurring during gestation, interact with each other, genetic susceptibility, and developmental programming to influence neurodevelopmental outcomes of children. As a molecular epidemiologist, she approaches epidemiologic research from a mechanistic and pathways perspective.

Dr. Schmidt leads pioneering research on gene-environment and nutrient-environment interactions in neurodevelopment and autism, and is working towards a deeper understanding of mechanisms involved, including epigenetic mechanisms, as this field provides ground-breaking framework for their intersections with each other and on methylation reactions during critical periods of embryonic epigenetic programming. She has over two decades of epidemiologic experience, and has led or co-led several epidemiologic studies, primarily focused on gestational and childhood development, including the CHARGE autism case-control study, the B-SAFE wildfire pregnancy cohort, the UCD site of the HOPE COVID-19 pregnancy study, the UCD site for the ECHO ASD-Enriched Risk cohort follow-up study of MARBLES and EARLI children who are at high-familial risk for autism and other neurodevelopmental conditions, including ADHD, at older ages, and the continuation of the high-risk MARBLES pregnancy cohort study. She also oversees a large biorepository with over 50,000 specimens and several staff.

Fun Facts about Dr. Schmidt:

  • What was your childhood nickname?
  • Sweet Pea.
  • What did you dream of being when you were a kid?
  • An astronaut or an art teacher.
  • What was your favorite band in high school?
  • Red Hot Chili Peppers.
  • How did you fall in love with science?
  • I was born being in love with science! I was always curious about how things ticked. 
  • What was your greatest scientific triumph?
  • I hope it’s yet to come!  We made progress when we learned that prenatal vitamins at the start of pregnancy were associated with a reduced risk for autism, especially in people who were genetically and environmentally susceptible. Now we just need to figure out how this might work.