Joseph Sweeney

About

Joseph Sweeney is a professional with extensive experience in education, leadership, and consulting. He is the President of Sweeney Consulting, LLC, where he creates and delivers new leadership thinking and programs for clients in the education sector, drawing on research from cognitive science, software systems, and gaming. Additionally, he serves as the Director of Innovation & Learning at How I Decide, a non-profit organization dedicated to equipping youth with fundamental thinking skills and strategies to manage everyday habits, in-the-moment choices, and significant decisions throughout their lives. Sweeney lectures at Columbia University in the Masters in Applied Analytics program and teaches Research Methods at Philadelphia University in the Doctorate in Strategic Leadership program. He is a Fellow of the Systems Wisdom Institute. His background includes twelve years of teaching at the secondary and college levels in fields such as mathematics, physics, software programming, and economics. He has held leadership roles including Associate Head of School at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy and Director of Innovation and Mathematics Department Chair at the Haverford School, where he received the Rafael Laserna Outstanding Teacher Award. Before his career in education, Sweeney worked as a software engineer, project manager, and entrepreneur across various industries, including finance, medical, real estate, and legal fields. He earned a B.A. from Villanova University, an…

Research topics

• Biology
• Genetics
• Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Developmental psychology
• Medicine
• Evolutionary biology
• Internal medicine
• Psychiatry
• Computational biology

Selected publications

• Large-Scale Exome Sequencing Study Implicates Both Developmental and Functional Changes in the Neurobiology of Autism

  Cell · 2020 · 2401 citations

  We present the largest exome sequencing study of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to date (n = 35,584 total samples, 11,986 with ASD). Using an enhanced analytical framework to integrate de novo and case-control rare variation, we identify 102 risk genes at a false discovery rate of 0.1 or less. Of these genes, 49 show higher frequencies of disruptive de novo variants in individuals ascertained to have severe neurodevelopmental delay, whereas 53 show higher frequencies in individuals ascertained t…

  DOI

• Rare coding variation provides insight into the genetic architecture and phenotypic context of autism

  Nature Genetics · 2022 · 602 citations

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A highly virulent variant of HIV-1 circulating in the Netherlands

  Science · 2022 · 74 citations

  increase (i.e., a ~3.5-fold to 5.5-fold increase) in viral load compared with, and exhibited CD4 cell decline twice as fast as, 6604 individuals with other subtype-B strains. Without treatment, advanced HIV-CD4 cell counts below 350 cells per cubic millimeter, with long-term clinical consequences-is expected to be reached, on average, 9 months after diagnosis for individuals in their thirties with this variant. Age, sex, suspected mode of transmission, and place of birth for the aforementioned 1…

  DOI

• Designing Resilient Drainage Systems for Intensified Rainfall Due to Climate Change

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Corrigendum: Cerebellar volumes and sensorimotor behavior in autism spectrum disorder

  UNC Libraries · 2025-04-25

  erratumOpen access

  [This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fnint.2022.821109.].

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01MH077862

  NIH · $3.1M · 2013

• NIH Grant P50MH045156

  NIH · $46.5M · 2009

• NIH Grant R01MH062134

  NIH · $1.8M · 2007

Frequent coauthors

• Qiyong Gong

  Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College

  872 shared

• Matcheri S. Keshavan

  Harvard University

  579 shared

• Godfrey D. Pearlson

  Institute for Community Living

  481 shared

• Su Lui

  West China Hospital of Sichuan University

  446 shared

• Carol A. Tamminga

  The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

  409 shared

• Brett A. Clementz

  University of Georgia

  316 shared

• Kun Qin

  West China Hospital of Sichuan University

  223 shared

• Xiaoqi Huang

  Sichuan University

  218 shared

Awards & honors

• Fellow of the Systems Wisdom Institute
• Rafael Laserna Outstanding Teacher Award

Similar researchers at Columbia University

• Catherine Rogersh-105
• Jiajing Wangh-86
• Jane McManush-80