British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Professor Avshalom Caspi
Professor of Personality Development, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London

Year elected: 2006

After a distinguished record in personality psychology, he moved into the field of lifespan psychology and sociology, with a particular focus on gene-environment interaction. His ground-breaking research is characterised by his careful attention to the study of environmental risk factors for psychopathology and for the need to use rigorous methods to test that the causal mechanism is environmentally, rather than genetically, mediated.