Richie Poulton

Richie Graham Poulton CNZM FRSNZ (born 1962)[1] is a New Zealand psychologist and the director of the University of Otago's Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health & Development Research Unit, which runs the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study (also known as the Dunedin Study). He is also a professor of psychology at the University of Otago and the co-director of their National Centre for Lifecourse Research.[2]

Poulton received his master's degree in science and his postgraduate diploma in clinical psychology from the University of Otago. In 1985–86, he worked as a research assistant on the Dunedin Study, helping Terrie Moffitt assess 13-year-old study participants.[3] In 1995, he received his Ph.D. from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He became director of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health & Development Research Unit of the University of Otago in 2000, and was awarded a personal chair in the School of Medicine there in 2006. He founded the National Centre for Lifecourse Research in 2007, and has been its co-director since then. He also founded the Graduate Longitudinal Study, New Zealand in 2011.[2] In 2015, he was appointed chief science adviser of the Ministry of Social Development in the New Zealand government.[4]

In 2004, Poulton received the New Zealand Association of Scientists' Research Medal and the Health Research Council of New Zealand's Liley Medal for Excellence in Health Research. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2010, and was named a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2017. He was named an ISI Highly Cited Researcher in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017.[2]

Poulton is married to clinical psychologist Sandhya Ramrakha, with whom he has a daughter.[5]