Frank Wendt

Frank Wendt joins the Forensic Science Program as an Assistant Professor in Forensic Genomics. Frank received a PhD in Biomedical Science (Molecular Genetics) from the University of North Texas Health Science Center in 2018. He comes to UTM from Yale School of Medicine and the United States Department of Veterans Affairs Connecticut Healthcare System. At Yale, he held several roles including a National Institute of Mental Health postdoctoral fellowship (NRSA F32) and a research faculty position.

Frank has a strong background in genetics and genomics applied to forensic science and psychiatry. His work has been published in top tier journals in psychiatric genetics and genetic epidemiology and such as Nature, Nature Genetics, Molecular Psychiatry, Biological Psychiatry, and Nature Communications. His forensic science research is actively published in top tier field-specific journals such as Forensic Science International: Genetics and International Journal of Legal Medicine. He is an Associate Member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and a member of the American Society of Human Genetics.

Dr. Wendt’s research generally aligns with the following highly interdisciplinary research topics:

• Pleiotropic effects of tandem repetitive elements in psychiatry and related conditions
• Shared genetic and environmental susceptibilities to internalizing spectrum disorders and transdiagnostic psychopathologies, including depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, neuroticism, and thoughts and behaviors associated with death by suicide
• Modeling ancestry diversity in DNA match statistics as applied to matters of the law
• Prediction of outwardly visible characteristics using patterns of DNA variation

Interested students, interns, postdoctoral trainees, and visiting scientists are encouraged to contact Dr. Wendt to discuss available research opportunities.