My research involves the use of computational tools to search the human genome for genetic variants influencing risk of psychiatric and neurological disorders including panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and Alzheimers disease. The genetics of these traits is complex, as multiple genes interact with environmental factors to determine an individual’s risk. When studying psychiatric traits, this complexity is compounded because psychiatric disorders are not distinct at the genetic level. For example, genetic variants that increase risk of developing panic disorder may also predispose an individual to bipolar disorder or phobias. To unravel this complexity, information must be integrated from a variety of sources, including families with a multiple affected individuals, large case-control study samples, and samples from different ancestral populations. The type of genetic data that can be examined is similarly diverse and can include microsatellite markers, single nucleotide polymorphisms, base-pair level sequence data. By leveraging these multiple sources of data, and by using analysis methods that allow for this complexity at both the genetic and trait level, the presence of disease can be correlated with variants across multiple genes. The identification of these variants can implicate new biological systems or molecular pathways which are disrupted, potentially resulting in the development of new biomarkers of disease, new treatments, or personalized therapies based on a patients genetic profile.