Welcome to the homepage of Dr. Elizabeth Hampson

Biographical Sketch
I grew up in the parkland region of Saskatchewan, Canada, where rolling hills turn into the granite rock and spruce forests of the Canadian Shield.  I attended the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon then moved "down east" for graduate studies.  I did my PhD at the University of Western Ontario.  I graduated in 1989, specializing in clinical neuropsychology.  My training included experience in the assessment of patients with neurological disorders at University Hospital and St. Joseph's Health Care Center in London and at the Montreal Neurological Institute.  My PhD allowed me to combine my interest in human brain function with a growing interest in endocrinology that had been triggered at the University of Saskatchewan.  My PhD research showed that the expression of certain cognitive functions in women is modified by the levels of ovarian hormones in the circulation.  This work received the Curt P. Richter Prize in neuroendocrinology in 1989.  With the assistance of a postdoctoral fellowship from NSERC, I completed a two-year postdoc at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.  There I initiated studies of cognitive development and behavioural outcomes in children and adolescents with congenital adrenal hyperplasia.  While at the Hospital for Sick Children I increased my training in pediatric neuropsychology and clinical assessment and I obtained my registration (license to practice) as a professional psychologist.  In 1991, I accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Western Ontario.  I am currently a professor in the Department of Psychology, a core member of the Graduate Program in Neuroscience, and I hold a cross appointment in the Department of Psychiatry at the Schulich School of Medicine. From 2003-07, I served on the Isis Fund Network on "Sex, Gender, Drugs and the Brain" under the auspices of the Society for Women's Health Research.  

Current research in my lab focuses on the effects of reproductive hormones in the central nervous system, and their implications for cognitive and behavioural processes, especially memory and spatial functions. Accurate measurement of hormones is an important part of our research. I run an on-site NSERC-supported immunoassay lab that offers a range of conventional serum-based assays and that specializes in the quantification of steroid hormones in human saliva.

Dr. Hampson currently holds a CIHR/IGH Senior Career Research Chair in Women's Health.

Links:

Join the Organization for the Study of Sex Differences!

Check out our book -- Sex Differences in the Brain: From Genes to Behaviour