Dr. Egger is a child psychiatrist and epidemiologist, who graduated from Yale Medical School and completed her adult and child residencies and post-doctoral research training at Duke University Medical Center. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the Center for Developmental Epidemiology in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University Medical Center.

      Dr. Egger’s research program focuses on presentation, course, and biological and environmental causes of psychiatric disorders, particularly anxiety disorders, in preschool children (children ages 2 through 5 years old). She has been a leader in the development of measures for assessing psychiatric symptoms and disorders in young children. Dr. Egger is lead author of the Preschool Age Psychiatric Assessment (PAPA), the first comprehensive structured parent interview for assessing psychiatric symptoms and disorders in preschool children, as well as lead developer of the ePAPA, a computerized version of the interview. The PAPA has been translated into Norwegian, Romanian, Italian, French, and Spanish. A Mandarin translation is under development.

      Her current research uses functional neuroimaging to examine dysfunctions of the neural circuitry in children with early onset anxiety disorders. She is leading the development of an early childhood neuroimaging program within the Center for Developmental Epidemiology and Brain Imaging and Analysis Center (BIAC) at Duke.

      Dr. Egger’s research program is supported by the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH), National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD), a Pfizer Faculty Scholar’s Grant in Clinical Epidemiology, and the National Alliance for Autism Research/Autism Speaks. In 2004, she received the Gerald L. Klerman Award for outstanding clinical research by a NARSAD Young Investigator. With her long-time collaborator, Adrian Angold, she is currently conducting a number of NIMH-funded studies including: a large, community study of preschool anxiety disorders, a longitudinal study of children diagnosed with psychiatric disorders as preschoolers, and an fMRI/eye tracking study of children diagnosed with anxiety disorders as preschoolers. Dr. Egger is also a collaborator on the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, a longitudinal study of the effects of early deprivation with children living in orphanages in Romania.

     Dr. Egger is clinical director of the Duke Preschool Psychiatric Clinic and conducts comprehensive evaluations and provides treatment for children ages 2 through 5 and their families. She currently serves in leadership positions for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and is a Board member for Zero to Three.