Jean Addington

Jean Margaret Addington is a Canadian clinical psychologist. She is a professor at the University of Calgary and a member of the Mathison Centre for Mental Health Research and Education, the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, and the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute. Her research focus is on psychosis and schizophrenia, intending to find predictors and mechanisms for mental illness. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Education Addington completed her Bachelor of Education degree at the University of Saskatchewan before enrolling at the University of Edinburgh for her Master's degree. She then returned to Canada for her PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Calgary, and received her accreditation as a registered psychologist in 1988.

Career Upon completing her PhD, Addington founded and directed Calgary's Early Psychosis Program and helped establish the "Prevention through Risk Identification, Management and Prevention" (PRIME) clinics in Calgary and Toronto. The main purpose of the PRIME clinics was to develop more accurate early detection methods for those at risk for psychosis. Through data from PRIME's first-episode clinic, Addington's research team were able to refine the universal understanding of which "prodromal," or pre-illness, symptoms are the most predictive. She also helped develop a new rating scale for the measurement of depression in schizophrenia. Beyond the PRIME clinics, Addington also served as one of the principal investigators in the North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study (NAPLS).

In 2019, Addington was awarded the International Early Intervention and Prevention in Mental Health Association's Richard Wyatt award as an individual who has made "a remarkable contribution to the area of early intervention." and Royal Society of Canada.