Working Group Participant

Nigel Williams, PhD

Cardiff University

Nigel is a professor in molecular genetics at the Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences at Cardiff University. His research focuses on understanding the role that both common and rare genetic variants have in common neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders. This involves using polygenic risk scores, rare copy number variants, and QTLs to investigate Parkinson’s disease, Schizophrenia, ADHD, and 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. At Cardiff University, he leads the research and computing facilities at the DPMCN, which has resulted in him gaining a strong appreciation of the HPC requirements for genomic research. He also leads the genetics and biobanking facilities of the United Kingdom wide Tracking Parkinson’s project and is a member of the executive committee. Finally, he is a member of the International Parkinson’s Disease Genetics Consortium (IPDGC), the Psychiatric Genetics Consortium (PGC), the International 22q11.2 Brain Behaviour Consortium (22q-IBBC), and the NIMH Rare Genetic Disease Network.