Sir Michael Rutter

Professor Sir Michael Rutter is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London.   He has been a consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital since 1966, and was Professor of Child Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry from 1973 to 1998.   He set up the Medical Research Council Child Psychiatry Research Unit in 1984 and the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Research Centre 10 years later, being honorary director of both until October 1998.   His research has included the genetics of autism, antisocial behaviour, and study of both school and family influences on children’s behaviour;  he also has a special interest in the interplay between genetic and psychosocial risk factors.  He has led a major study into the effect of early severe deprivation on Romanian orphans adopted into Britain; this is now entering a third phase in which the subjects are followed up at age 15.  He was Deputy Chairman of the Wellcome Trust from 1999 to 2004.  He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1987 and was a Founding Fellow of the Academia Europaea and the Academy of Medical Sciences, of which he is now clinical vice president. He has received numerous international honours and has published some 40 books and over 400 scientific papers and chapters.