Stephen R. Dager, M.D. is a Professor of Radiology and Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering and Psychiatry at the University of Washington.  He is a Research Affiliate at the Center on Human Development and Disability. Dr. Dager serves as interim Director of the University of Washington Autism Center. At the national level, Dr. Dager sits on the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program’s Vision and Integration panels for autism research, on the Scientific Advisory Board of Autism Speaks and is on the Editorial Board for Autism Research.

Dr. Dager obtained his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Nebraska and completed his residency training in Psychiatry at the University of Washington. He is a Diplomat of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and a member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. His primary research focus has been the development and application of imaging techniques to study brain mechanisms involved in neuropsychiatric disorders. 

Dr. Dager directs NIH-funded research studying brain structural, metabolic and chemical abnormalities in neuropsychiatric disorders affecting both adults and young children.  As principal investigator of an ongoing “Neuroimaging of Autism” study funded by the NIH during the past 12 years, he is using structural MRI, DTI and a chemical imaging technique, proton echo-planar spectroscopic imaging (PEPSI), that was developed at the University of Washington Diagnostic Imaging Science Center (DISC), to longitudinally investigate brain development in children with autism or developmental delays in comparison to typically developing children between 3 and 15 years of age.  Dr. Dager is also UW PI of a collaborative longitudinal imaging study of infants at high risk for autism that is being conducted between UNC Chapel Hill, Washington University, UPenn and the UW. He has directed NIH-funded imaging research investigating brain metabolic mechanisms underlying Panic Disorder and Bipolar Disorder, and the effects of treatment.  Dr. Dager and colleagues have developed novel techniques to non-invasively characterize brain pharmacokinetics of medications commonly used to treat depression and anxiety in children and adults. As a passionate consumer of caffeine in all forms, Dr. Dager also conducts research studying brain mechanisms involved in caffeine addiction.