Centre for Brain & Cognitive Development

Room 516b, Malet St
Birkbeck, University of London
London WC1E 7HX
e-mail: e.meaburn@bbk.ac.uk

Emma Meaburn is a Reader in Human Genetics at Birkbeck, University of London. After completing her PhD in Behaviour Genetics at King’s College London, she joined Birkbeck and the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development (CBCD) in 2010. Her research investigates how genetic variation shapes individual differences in behaviour and development, and the processes that mediate these influences (for example, see here).

Recognising the broader societal implications of this work, in 2025 Dr. Meaburn became Deputy Director of the University of London's Centre for Educational Neuroscience, where she works with colleagues at Birkbeck and UCL to better understand the real-world challenges facing education and how genomic insights might help.

Her research is built on the belief that genomic research, particularly in relation to education and child development, must be conducted responsibly and communicated effectively. This principle led to a secondment with the Nuffield Foundation and Nuffield Council on Bioethics, where she provided expert insight on how genomic research might impact educational practice and policy, as well as the ethical issues that arise (see here).

In short, Dr. Meaburn’s research combines a focus on empirical discovery with a forward-looking perspective on how new insights might be applied responsibly for the benefit of individuals, their families and wider society.

Ms Nisa Rainy (2022- ongoing)

Ms Hattie Ruffer (2024- ongoing)

Ms Mahitab Elgamal (2024 – ongoing)

Dr Rebecca Harrison, Post Doc (2018-2020)

Dr Georgina Donati (2015-2018)

Dr Anna Gui (2015-2018)

Dr Ayden Saffari (2013-2016)

Dr Kate Hughes (2013- 2016)

Dr Meaburn has received research funding from the following research bodies and charities: the Bloomsbury Colleges consortium, the British Academy, the Royal Society, Birkbeck’s Faculty of Science, Birkbeck Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support fund (ISSF), and the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative.

Rainy, N.R., Meaburn, E., Oliver, B.R. et al. (2025). In the genetics of the beholder: gene-environment interplay for internalising and externalising behaviours using polygenic scores and adolescent perceptions of parenting. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-025-02804-8

Meaburn, E L (2025) Navigating genomics and education: insights, opportunities and challenges. Nuffield Foundation and Nuffield Council On Bioethics. See here for the affiliated workshop report.

Aislinn Bowler, Tomoki Arichi, Pasco Fearon, Emma Meaburn, Jannath Begum-Ali, Greg Pascoe, Mark H. Johnson, Emily J.H. Jones, Angelica Ronald (2024) Phenotypic and Genetic Associations Between Preschool Fine Motor Skills and Later Neurodevelopment, Psychopathology, and Educational Achievement. Biological Psychiatry, Volume 95, Issue 9.

Donati, G., Dumontheil, I., Pain, O., Asbury, K., & Meaburn, E. L. (2021). Evidence for specificity of polygenic contributions to attainment in English, maths and science during adolescence. Scientific Reports, 11(1), 3851.

Donati, G., Meaburn, E., & Dumontheil, I. (2021). Internalising and externalising in early adolescence predict later executive function, not the other way around: A cross-lagged panel analysis. Cognition and Emotion, 35(5), 922–936.

Fish, L. A., Nyström, P., Gliga, T., Gui, A., Ali, J. B., Mason, L., Garg, S., Green, J., Johnson, M. H., Charman, T., Harrison, R., Meaburn, E., Falck-Ytter, T., Jones, E. J. H., & the STAARS-BASIS team. (2021). Development of the pupillary light reflex from 9 to 24 months in infants with elevated liability to autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 63(4), 436-446.

Gui, A., Meaburn, E. L., Tye, C., Charman, T., Johnson, M. H., & Jones, E. J. H. (2021). Association of polygenic liability for autism with face-sensitive cortical responses from infancy. JAMA Pediatrics, 175(9), 963–972.

Gui, A., Jones, E. J. H., Wong, C. C. Y., Meaburn, E., Xia, B., Pasco, G., Lloyd-Fox, S., Charman, T., Bolton, P., & Johnson, M. H. (2020). Leveraging epigenetics to examine differences in developmental trajectories of social attention: A proof-of-principle study of DNA methylation in infants with older siblings with autism. Infant Behavior and Development, 60, 101458.

Gui, A., Mason, L., Gliga, T., Hendry, A., Ali, J. B., Pasco, G., Shephard, E., Curtis, C., Charman, T., Johnson, M. H., Meaburn, E., Jones, E., & the BASIS-STAARS team. (2020). Look duration at the face as a developmental endophenotype: Elucidating pathways to autism and ADHD. Development and Psychopathology, 33(4), 1219-1238.

Meaburn, E. L., & Donati, G. (2020). What has behavioural genetic research told us about the origins of individual differences in educational abilities and achievements? In M. S. C. Thomas, D. Mareschal, & I. Dumontheil (Eds.), Educational neuroscience: Development across the life span (pp. 67-85). Routledge.

Donati, G., Dumontheil, I., & Meaburn, E. (2019). Genome‐wide association study of latent cognitive measures in adolescence: Genetic overlap with intelligence and education. Mind, Brain, and Education, 13(3), 224–233.

Donati, G., Meaburn, E., & Dumontheil, I. (2019). The specificity of associations between cognition and attainment in English, maths and science during adolescence. Learning and Individual Differences, 69, 84–93.

Saffari, A., Arno, M., Ronald, A., Wong, C. C. Y., Schalkwyk, L. C., Mill, J., Dudbridge, F., & Meaburn, E. (2019). RNA sequencing of identical twins discordant for autism reveals blood-based signatures implicating immune and transcriptional dysregulation. Molecular Autism, 10(1), 38.

Saffari, A., Silver, M. J., Zavattari, P., Moi, L., Columbano, A., Meaburn, E. L., & Dudbridge, F. (2018). Estimation of a significance threshold for epigenome-wide association studies. Genetic Epidemiology, 42(1), 20–33.

Marzi, S. J., Meaburn, E. L., Dempster, E. L., Lunnon, K., Paya-Cano, J. L., Smith, R. G., Volta, M., Troakes, C., Schalkwyk, L. C., & Mill, J. (2016). Tissue-specific patterns of allelically-skewed DNA methylation. Epigenetics, 11(1), 24–35.

Spain, S. L., Pedroso, I., Kadeva, N., Miller, M. B., Iacono, W. G., McGue, M., Stergiakouli, E., Smith, G. D., Putallaz, M., Lubinski, D., Meaburn, E. L., Plomin, R., & Simpson, M. A. (2016). A genome-wide analysis of putative functional and exonic variation associated with extremely high intelligence. Molecular Psychiatry, 21(8), 1145–1151.

St Pourcain, B., Haworth, C. M. A., Davis, O. S., Wang, K., Timpson, N. J., Evans, D. M., Kemp, J. P., Ronald, A., Price, T., Meaburn, E., Ring, S., Golding, J., Hakonarson, H., Plomin, R., & Smith, G. D. (2015). Heritability and genome-wide analyses of problematic peer relationships during childhood and adolescence. Human Genetics, 134(6), 539–551.

Thomas, M. S. C., Kovas, Y., Meaburn, E. L., & Tolmie, A. (2015). What can the study of genetics offer to educators? Mind, Brain, and Education, 9(2), 72–80.

Broadbent, H., Farran, E. K., Chin, E., Metcalfe, K., Tassabehji, M., Turnpenny, P., Sansbury, F., Meaburn, E. L., & Karmiloff-Smith, A. (2014). Genetic contributions to visuospatial cognition in Williams syndrome: Insights from two contrasting partial deletion patients. Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, 6(1), 31.

Davis, O. S., Band, G., Pirinen, M., Haworth, C. M. A., Meaburn, E. L., Kovas, Y., Harlaar, N., Docherty, S., Hanscombe, K. B., Trzaskowski, M., Curtis, C., Strange, A., Freeman, C., Bellenguez, C., Su, Z., Pearson, R., Vukcevic, D., Langford, C., Deloukas, P., … Spencer, C. C. A. (2014). The correlation between reading and mathematics ability at age twelve has a substantial genetic component. Nature Communications, 5(1), 4204.

Harlaar, N., Meaburn, E. L., Hayiou-Thomas, M. E., Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium, Davis, O. S., Docherty, S., Hanscombe, K. B., Haworth, C. M. A., Price, T. S., Trzaskowski, M., Dale, P. S., & Plomin, R. (2014). Genome-wide association study of receptive language ability of 12-year-olds. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 57(1), 96–106.

Sieradzka, D., Power, R. A., Freeman, D., Cardno, A. G., McGuire, P., Plomin, R., Meaburn, E. L., Dudbridge, F., & Ronald, A. (2014). Are genetic risk factors for psychosis also associated with dimension-specific psychotic experiences in adolescence? PLoS ONE, 9(4), e94398.

St Pourcain, B., Cents, R. A. M., Whitehouse, A. J. O., Haworth, C. M. A., Davis, O. S., O’Reilly, P. F., Roulstone, S., Wren, Y., Ang, Q. W., Velders, F. P., Evans, D. M., Kemp, J. P., Warrington, N. M., Miller, L., Timpson, N. J., Ring, S. M., Verhulst, F. C., Hofman, A., Rivadeneira, F., … Smith, G. D. (2014). Common variation near ROBO2 is associated with expressive vocabulary in infancy. Nature Communications, 5(1), 4831.

Wong, C. C. Y., Meaburn, E. L., Ronald, A., Price, T. S., Jeffries, A. R., Schalkwyk, L. C., Plomin, R., & Mill, J. (2014). Methylomic analysis of monozygotic twins discordant for autism spectrum disorder and related behavioural traits. Molecular Psychiatry, 19(4), 495–503.

Benyamin, B., St Pourcain, B., Davis, O. S., Davies, G., Hansell, N. K., Brion, M.-J. A., Kirkpatrick, R. M., Cents, R. A. M., Franic, S., Miller, M. B., Haworth, C. M. A., Meaburn, E., Price, T. S., Evans, D. M., Timpson, N., Kemp, J., Ring, S., McArdle, W., Medland, S. E., … Visscher, P. M. (2014). Childhood intelligence is heritable, highly polygenic and associated with FNBP1L. Molecular Psychiatry, 19(2), 253–258.

Plomin, R., Haworth, C. M. A., Meaburn, E. L., Price, T. S., Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium, & Davis, O. S. P. (2013). Common DNA markers can account for more than half of the genetic influence on cognitive abilities. Psychological Science, 24(4), 562–568.

Trzaskowski, M., Eley, T. C., Davis, O. S., Docherty, S. J., Hanscombe, K. B., Meaburn, E. L., Haworth, C. M. A., Price, T., & Plomin, R. (2013). First genome-wide association study on anxiety-related behaviours in childhood. PLoS ONE, 8(4), e58676.

Viding, E., Price, T. S., Jaffee, S. R., Trzaskowski, M., Davis, O. S., Meaburn, E. L., Haworth, C. M. A., & Plomin, R. (2013). Genetics of callous-unemotional behavior in children. PLoS ONE, 8(7), e65789.

Meaburn, E. L., & Schulz, R. (2012). Next generation sequencing in epigenetics: Insights and challenges. Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology, 23(2), 193–199.

Davies, M., Meaburn, E. L., & Schalkwyk, L. C. (2010). Gene set enrichment: A problem of pathways. Briefings in Functional Genomics, 9(5-6), 406–415.

Davis, O. S., Butcher, L. M., Meaburn, E. L., Docherty, S. J., Curtis, C., Simpson, M. A., Craig, I. W., Schalkwyk, L. C., & Plomin, R. (2010). A three-stage genome-wide association study of general cognitive ability: Hunting the small effects. Behavior Genetics, 40(6), 759–767.

Docherty, S. J., Davis, O. S., Kovas, Y., Meaburn, E. L., Dale, P. S., Petrill, S. A., Schalkwyk, L. C., & Plomin, R. (2010). A genome-wide association study identifies multiple loci associated with mathematics ability and disability. Genes, Brain and Behavior, 9(2), 234–247.

Meaburn, E. L., Schalkwyk, L. C., & Mill, J. (2010). Allele-specific methylation in the human genome: Implications for genetic studies of complex disease. Epigenetics, 5(7), 578–582.

Schalkwyk, L. C., Meaburn, E. L., Smith, R., Dempster, E. L., Plomin, R., & Mill, J. (2010). Allelic skewing of DNA methylation is widespread across the genome. American Journal of Human Genetics, 86(2), 196–212.

Schosser, A., Pirlo, K., Gaysina, D., Cohen-Woods, S., Schalkwyk, L. C., Elkin, A., Korszun, A., Gunasinghe, C., Gray, J., Jones, L., Meaburn, E., Farmer, A. E., Craig, I. W., & McGuffin, P. (2010). Utility of the pooling approach as applied to whole genome association scans with high-density Affymetrix microarrays. BMC Research Notes, 3(1), 183.

Viding, E., Hanscombe, K. B., Curtis, C., Davis, O. S., Meaburn, E. L., & Plomin, R. (2010). In search of genes associated with risk for psychopathic tendencies in children: A two-stage genome-wide association study of pooled DNA. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 51(7), 780–788.

Meaburn, E. L., Fernandes, C., Craig, I. W., Plomin, R., & Schalkwyk, L. C. (2009). Assessing individual differences in genome-wide gene expression in human whole blood: Reliability over four hours and stability over 10 months. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 12(4), 386–392.

Haworth, C. M. A., Carnell, S., Meaburn, E. L., Davis, O. S., Plomin, R., & Wardle, J. (2008). Increasing heritability of BMI and stronger associations with the FTO gene over childhood. Obesity, 16(12), 2663–2668.

Meaburn, E. L., Harlaar, N., Craig, I. W., Schalkwyk, L. C., & Plomin, R. (2008). Quantitative trait locus association scan of early reading disability and ability using pooled DNA and 100K SNP microarrays in a sample of 5760 children. Molecular Psychiatry, 13(7), 729–740.

Haworth, C. M. A., Meaburn, E. L., Harlaar, N., & Plomin, R. (2007). Reading and generalist genes. Mind, Brain, and Education, 1(4), 180–187.

Meaburn, E., Butcher, L. M., Schalkwyk, L. C., & Plomin, R. (2006). Genotyping pooled DNA using 100K SNP microarrays: A step towards genomewide association scans. Nucleic Acids Research, 34(4), e22.

Butcher, L. M., Meaburn, E., Dale, P. S., Sham, P., Schalkwyk, L. C., Craig, I. W., & Plomin, R. (2005). Association analysis of mild mental impairment using DNA pooling to screen 432 brain-expressed single-nucleotide polymorphisms. Molecular Psychiatry, 10(4), 384–392.

Butcher, L. M., Meaburn, E., Knight, J., Sham, P. C., Schalkwyk, L. C., Craig, I. W., & Plomin, R. (2005). SNPs, microarrays and pooled DNA: Identification of four loci associated with mild mental impairment in a sample of 6000 children. Human Molecular Genetics, 14(10), 1315–1325.

Butcher, L. M., Meaburn, E., Liu, L., Fernandes, C., Hill, L., Al-Chalabi, A., Plomin, R., Schalkwyk, L., & Craig, I. W. (2004). Genotyping pooled DNA on microarrays: A systematic genome screen of thousands of SNPs in large samples to detect QTLs for complex traits. Behavior Genetics, 34(5), 549–555.

Craig, I., Meaburn, E., Butcher, L., Hill, L., & Plomin, R. (2005). Single-nucleotide polymorphism genotyping in DNA pools. In Methods in molecular biology (Vol. 311, pp. 147–164). Humana Press.

Harlaar, N., Butcher, L. M., Meaburn, E., Sham, P., Craig, I. W., & Plomin, R. (2005). A behavioural genomic analysis of DNA markers associated with general cognitive ability in 7-year-olds. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 46(10), 1067–1077.

Meaburn, E. L., Butcher, L. M., Liu, L., Fernandes, C., Hansen, V., Al-Chalabi, A., Plomin, R., Craig, I. W., & Schalkwyk, L. C. (2005). Genotyping DNA pools on microarrays: Tackling the QTL problem of large samples and large numbers of SNPs. BMC Genomics, 6(1), 52.

Simpson, C. L., Knight, J., Butcher, L. M., Hansen, V. K., Meaburn, E. L., Schalkwyk, L. C., Craig, I. W., Powell, J. F., Sham, P. C., & Al-Chalabi, A. (2005). A central resource for accurate allele frequency estimation from pooled DNA genotyped on DNA microarrays. Nucleic Acids Research, 33(3), e25.