About

Moin Syed is a cultural and developmental psychologist affiliated with the University of Minnesota's College of Liberal Arts, where he holds the McKnight Presidential Endowed Professorship in Psychology. His research seeks to bring a broad and integrated perspective to the study of psychology, with a current focus on meta-science and scientific reform. Syed aims to foster a deeper understanding of how psychological research is conducted, with the goal of improving the collective knowledge base. His projects encompass research methods, theory development, inference, open science, and the history of psychology, with a particular interest in integrating racial and ethnic minority psychology with mainstream psychology. Although his primary focus is on meta-science and scientific reform, Syed continues to engage in substantive research on identity and personality development among adolescents and emerging adults from diverse ethnic, racial, and cultural backgrounds. His work explores topics such as master narratives and identity integration. Syed's educational background includes a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and master's and bachelor's degrees in Developmental Psychology and Psychology from San Francisco State University. He has contributed extensively to the field through publications, editorial roles, and leadership positions in professional organizations, and he has received awards recognizing his research and teaching excellence.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Medicine
• Political Science
• Environmental health
• Psychology
• Medical education
• Genetics
• Biology
• Computational biology
• Evolutionary biology
• Pedagogy

Selected publications

• Genetic diversity fuels gene discovery for tobacco and alcohol use

  Nature · 2022 · 504 citations

  • Biology
  • Genetics
  • Evolutionary biology

  . Here we leveraged global genetic diversity across 3.4 million individuals from four major clines of global ancestry (approximately 21% non-European) to power the discovery and fine-mapping of genomic loci associated with tobacco and alcohol use, to inform function of these loci via ancestry-aware transcriptome-wide association studies, and to evaluate the genetic architecture and predictive power of polygenic risk within and across populations. We found that increases in sample size and genetic diversity improved locus identification and fine-mapping resolution, and that a large majority of the 3,823 associated variants (from 2,143 loci) showed consistent effect sizes across ancestry dimensions. However, polygenic risk scores developed in one ancestry performed poorly in others, highlighting the continued need to increase sample sizes of diverse ancestries to realize any potential benefit of polygenic prediction.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Person–Environment Fit and Retention of Racially Minoritized College Students: Recommendations for Faculty, Support Staff, and Administrators

  Education Sciences · 2021 · 27 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Psychology

  Although colleges in the United States have become increasingly racially and ethnically diverse, degree attainment remains disproportionately low among students from underrepresented and minoritized racial backgrounds. In this paper, we discuss the interactive influence of both person and environment factors in shaping academic persistence and argue that college administrators, faculty, and student support staff can intervene and take specific steps to improve the academic experience of racially minoritized college students. To this end, we offer specific evidence-based recommendations for campus leaders and stakeholders on how to adapt their campus community to facilitate the requisite person–environment fit to maximize academic persistence.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Kate C. McLean

  Western Washington University

  90 shared

• Jillian Fish

  Macalester College

  45 shared

• Miia Siutila

  Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

  28 shared

• Linda P. Juang

  University of Potsdam

  27 shared

• Ummul‐Kiram Kathawalla

  Suffolk University

  27 shared

• Veli‐Matti Karhulahti

  27 shared

• Peter Branney

  22 shared

• Dulce Wilkinson Westberg

  22 shared

Labs

• Moin Syed LabPI

Awards & honors

• McKnight Presidential Endowed Professor, University of Minne…
• Outstanding Paper Award, The Counseling Psychologist, 2023
• Arthur "Red" Motley Exemplary Teaching Award, College of Lib…
• Best Paper Award, Asian American Journal of Psychology, 2012

Similar researchers at University of Minnesota

• David Jacobsh-223
• Eamonn Maherh-172
• Robert Kruegerh-132
• Paul Robbinsh-126
• Matt McGueh-125