Director

Dr. Luby is the Samuel and Mae S. Ludwig Professor of Child Psychiatry at Washington University. She is founder and director of the Washington University School of Medicine Early Emotional Development Program, which focuses on the study and treatment of mood disorders in preschool-aged children, early onset psychopathology and early environmental determinants of neurodevelopment and risk and resilience for psychopathology. Dr. Luby’s clinical work and research also focuses on the emotional development of young children and how deviations in this trajectory relate to risk for early onset disorders and predict their longitudinal course. Dr. Luby and colleagues have conducted the first large-scale empirical studies to establish the criteria for identifying and validating the characteristics of depression in preschoolers and developed an early psychotherapeutic intervention that proved both powerfully and durably effective. Dr. Luby and colleagues are currently investigating the role of experience and, more specifically, early psychosocial factors on brain development and risk and resilience for psychopathology and optimization of early developmental trajectories. Related to this, early psychotherapeutic interventions that focus on enhancing the parent child relationship in the hopes of optimizing developmental trajectories is a key aim of the program. Dr. Luby earned her medical degree from Wayne State University and completed her residency in psychiatry and fellowship in child psychiatry at Stanford University. She was honored with NARSAD’s Gerald L. Klerman Award for Outstanding Clinical Research in 2004 and the Washington University Faculty Achievement Award in 2015, the Ruane Award for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in 2020, and the Washington University School of Medicine Dean’s Medal for Research Excellence in 2025. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2021.