For more than 30 years, Robert Plomin has conducted studies, many involving adopted children and twins raised apart, to increase understanding of the roles played by genetics and environment as a person develops. His research includes a study of all twins born in England during 1994-1996, which focuses on developmental problems in language, cognition, and behavior.

Born in 1948 in Chicago, Plomin received his B.A. from DePaul University (1970) and went on to earn a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Texas, Austin (1974). In 1974 he joined the Institute for Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, the first research establishment of its kind. After a year at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto, Calif. (1984-85), he moved to Penn State University to launch with Gerald McClearn an interdisciplinary research center called the Center for Developmental and Health Genetics. In 1994 he helped Michael Rutter launch an interdisciplinary center at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London; he is now a research professor and deputy director of the institute's Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Research Centre.

During the past decade, Plomin has been working with the techniques of molecular biology to identify specific genes related to psychological traits in order to advance understanding of the developmental interplay between genes and environment.