Cynthia Shannon Weickert

Cyndi Shannon Weickert is an American professor and researcher. Her research investigates the molecular developmental neurobiology of schizophrenia.

Early life and education Weickert is from Finger Lakes. She studied biology and psychology at Keuka College in upstate New York. She completed her doctorate in Biomedical Science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She moved to the National Institute of Mental Health as a postdoctoral scholar, where she was eventually promoted to Unit Chief of Molecules in the Neurobiology Unit.

Research and career Weickert studies the neurobiological mechanisms that underpin psychiatric disease. She investigates the cellular and molecular-level changes that take place in the brains of people suffering from schizophrenia. In 2010, she moved to Neuroscience Research Australia, where she leads the translational research team. She has shown that people with schizophrenia who have more brain inflammation have more complex neuropathologies, including more cortical thinning and poorer cognition.

Weickert was awarded the 2016 Biological Psychiatry Australia Isaac Schweitzer Award. In 2021, she was awarded the Schizophrenia International Research Society Outstanding Translational Research Awardee.

Personal life Weickert had a twin brother who was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 17. He struggled to find effective treatment, and died from a cardiometabolic disease related to the schizophrenia in his early forties.

Selected publications