J9 Austin

PhD, MSc

Investigator, BC Children's Hospital
Head and Professor, UBC Department of Medical Genetics

I am a genetic counselor with a PhD in psychiatric genetics. Much of my work is at the intersection of these fields. For example, I established the worlds first psychiatric genetic counseling clinic here in Vancouver, and have been studying how best to provide this intervention to ensure it helps people to the fullest potential, and what the outcomes look like.

More broadly, I am interested in ensuring that populations that have traditionally been underserved have equitable access to the potential benefits of precision medicine. Given that precision medicine is an approach for treatment and prevention that takes each person’s variability in genes, environment and lifestyle into account, I see genetic counseling as an important component of this. Genetic counseling is about helping people to make meaning of genetic information, and helping them to use that information in ways that align with their values, needs and wants to manage their lives and health in the face of uncertainty.

The research I do uses both qualitative and quantitative methods, and is primarily clinical, and health services oriented. My team addresses questions related to how to ensure that diverse populations (e.g. neurodiverse adults, trans and non-binary people, people who have psychiatric conditions, etc.) have access to the potential benefits of precision medicine.