Susan Smalley

Smalley is the co-founder of PTK Capital, an investment fund that invests in early stage companies and venture capital funds. The firm's investment activities focus on transformative companies in the areas of Entertainment, Food and Wellness. PTK Capital supports "people and ideas with the potential to significantly benefit the human condition."

Smalley is on the board of directors for Roswell Biotechnologies, a molecular electronics company that developed a molecular electronics chip to read DNA and a novel system approach to reduce whole genome sequencing, each to provide precision medical treatment.[5] In 2010, she co-founded Cell-Ed, a platform to bring basic literacy to adults in underserved populations using mobile phones.[6][7]

Smalley is also on the scientific advisory board for Stop Breathe and Think, an app fpr emotional well being;[8] and the board of directors for Equality Now, an international human rights organization focused on women and girls;[9] and was honored by Equality Now in December 2019.[10]

Smalley joined the faculty at UCLA after she completed post-doctoral fellowships in medical genetics and childhood psychopathology, moving from assistant to full professor until her retirement to emeritus in 2011.[11]

In 1988 she published a review paper on the genetics of autism in JAMA Psychiatry. Following its publication, she received a National Institute of Health (NIH) grant to investigate genetic determinants in autism, and pioneered an approach to behavioral genetics by studying known genetic disorders with behavioral sequelae, specifically, the study of tuberous sclerosis complex, (TSC), a genetic disorder in which autistic disorder occurs at higher rates than the general population.[12] She continued to research autism for the following ten years, producing numerous papers on the genetics and subclinical variants of autism beyond the diagnostic classification as well as genetic and behavioral studies of TSC.[2]

Smalley's focus subsequently shifted to ADHD. Her lab produced more than 40 publications on the disorder, including the first genome-wide scan (in conjunction with investigators at Oxford University),[13] candidate gene investigations,[14] and a series of papers on ADHD among a northern Finnish birth cohort.[15] She wrote extensively on the strengths of those with ADHD, characterizing it as a different way of thinking rather than a deficit.[16]

Smalley was diagnosed with an early stage melanoma in 2002. She took a leave of absence to explore non-western wellness practices, and in addition to significant lifestyle changes, she developed a meditation practice. When she returned to UCLA, she began researching mindfulness meditation and its impact on ADHD and other disorders. She subsequently led seminal studies that demonstrated the relationship between mindfulness and common personality traits of those with ADHD, mindfulness as an intervention in ADHD, and school-based approaches to bringing mindfulness to children.[17]

Smalley founded the Mindful Awareness Research Center at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior (MARC) to bring meditation practices to the general public through research and education.[18] In an article for the Huffington Post, she wrote: "As a scientist, I love the challenge of understanding my mind, from the inside, while learning what science tells us from the outside. The merging of these two approaches will yield knowledge far greater than either can alone."[19]

In 2010, Smalley and Diana Winston, a former Buddhist nun and the director of education at MARC, wrote Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness.[20] It explores the science of meditation and provides guidance to develop a mindfulness practice.[21]

Smalley also writes regularly for the Huffington Post'' and Psychology Today.[22] She was the keynote speaker at the UCLA Department of Anthropology commencement ceremony in 2013, and the 2017 Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD) annual conference.[23][24]

• Smalley, Lidia Zylowska, Deborah L. Ackerman, May H. Yang, Julie L. Futrell, Nancy L. Horton, T. Sigi Hale, Caroly Pataki; "Mindfulness Meditation Training in Adults and Adolescents with ADHD: A Feasibility Study"; The Journal of Attention Disorders; 2008.
• Smalley, Sandra K. Loo, T. Sigi Hale, Ph.D, Anshu Shrestha, M.S., M.P.H, James McGough, M.D, Lisa Flook, Ph.D, and Steven Reise, Ph.D.; "Mindfulness and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder"; Journal of Clinical Psychology (2009)
• Smalley, Lisa Flook, M. Jennifer Kitil, Brian M. Galla, Susan Kaiser-Greenland, Jill Locke, Eric Ishijima, Connie Kasari; "Effects of Mindful Awareness Practices on Executive Functions in Elementary School Children" Journal of Applied School Psychology (2010)

• Smalley; "Reframing ADHD in the Genomic Era"; Psychiatric Times (2008)
• Smalley, Deborah E. Lynn, Gitta Lubke, May Yang, James T. McCracken, James J. McGough, Janeen Ishii, Sandra K. Loo, Stanley F. Nelson; "Temperament and Character Profiles and the Dopamine D4 Receptor Gene in ADHD"; American Journal of Psychiatry (2005)
• Smalley, Sandra K. Loo, May Yang, RM Cantor; "Toward Localizing Genes Underlying Cerebral Asymmetry and Mental Health"; American Journal of Medicine, Neuropsychiatric Genetics (2005)
• Smalley, Simon E.Fisher, James T.McCracken, James J.McGough, Angela J.Marlow, Laurence MacPhie, Dianne F.Newbury, Lori R.Crawford, Christina G.S.Palmer, Arthur Woodward, Melissa Del’Homme, Dennis P.Cantwell, Stanley F.Nelson, Anthony P.Monaco; "A Genomewide Scan for Loci Involved in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder"; American Journal of Human Genetics (2002)
• Smalley; "Genetic Influences in Childhood-onset Psychiatric Disorders: Autism and Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder"'; American Journal of Behavior Genetics (1997)

• Smalley; "Girl's Education: A Right to Learn"; Gordon and Sarah Brown High Level Panel for the Global Campaign for Education (2013)
• Smalley; "Getting Enlightened About Prostitution"; Huffington Post (2015)