Christopher L. Coe, PhD

Position title: Professor Emeritus, Psychology

Christopher L. Coe, PhD

PhD, State University of New York, Brooklyn

Contact Information

UW-Madison
153 Primate Lab, Harlow
22 N. Charter Street
Madison, WI 53715
ccoe@wisc.edu

Research Statement

The term ‘exposome’ has been used to succinctly capture the diverse influences that the environment and our behavior can have on our physiology, especially during early development. Our research has focused on the potential vulnerabilities that this responsiveness to the world may have during the fetal and infancy periods.  Specifically, we investigated the ways that maternal adiposity, nutrition, stress, and infection during pregnancy can affect postnatal development and wellbeing. Some of our studies took advantage of advances in neuroimaging to assess how early life events can affect brain development.

In other research we employed a life course perspective to consider the possibility of more persistent, long-term effects on adult health, including during the transition to old age and senescence. We often used biomarkers of health including hormone and immune indices. More recent studies also examined effects on the commensal bacteria in the digestive tract, the gut microbiome.

Selected Publications

PubMed