While primarily a human geneticist with a background in medical genetics, Dr. Kidd’s broader interests, reflected in his joint appointments, are in human genetic variation, both with respect to how that variation arose and is distributed around the world and how variations, both common and rare, are related to complex brain and behavior disorders. Dr. Kidd’s laboratory has contributed to understanding normal genetic variation at several candidate genes for brain and behavior disorders, including dopamine receptor genes and ethanol metabolizing genes. Over more than 40 years, he and his research team have conducted a large number of major studies of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, and most recently, Tourette syndrome and alcoholism.

Dr. Kidd joined the genetics faculty at Yale School of Medicine in 1973. In the area of public service, Dr. Kidd served on national advisory committees for DNA identification of victims of the World Trade Center attack and of Hurricane Katrina.