Iiris Hovatta (born 31 December 1970 in Espoo, Finland) is a Finnish geneticist and neuroscientist, specializing in genetics, genomics, behavioral neuroscience, and biological psychiatry. She is professor of behavioral genetics at the University of Helsinki, Finland.[1]
Hovatta obtained her MSc in genetics from the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Biosciences, in 1994, under the supervision of Leena Peltonen-Palotie. She completed her PhD in medical genetics at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Medicine, in 1998, with a thesis entitled "Molecular Genetics of Familial Schizophrenia and PLO-SL," supervised by Leena Peltonen-Palotie and Jouko Lönnqvist. In 2006, she earned the title of docent in medical molecular biology at the University of Helsinki.[2]
From 2017 she held the position of associate professor in neurogenomics at the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, becoming a full professor of behavioral genetics in the Department of Psychology and Logopedics at the Faculty of Medicine in 2018.
She currently serves as a councilor on the Executive Committee o the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) for the 2022-2025 term,[3] and was a member of the Scientific Program Committee of the 35th ECNP Congress 2022.