The Avielle Foundation, which was founded by the parents of a first-grader killed in the Newtown school shooting with the goal of preventing violence through neurobiological research, has announced the initial members of its scientific advisory board.

The three advisory board members are Terrie E. Moffitt, a brain health expert and professor of neuroscience at Duke University and the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London; R. John Krystal, professor of translational research and chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine; and James Blair, chief of the Affective Cognitive Neuroscience unit at the National Institute of Mental Health.

Jeremy Richman and Jennifer Hensel, whose daughter, Avielle, was one of twenty children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School along with six educators, established the foundation in January. The advisory board will provide guidance for the foundation's fundraising efforts as well as the establishment of its grantmaking program. The foundation expects to begin reviewing grant applications from researchers in January 2014.

"The Avielle Foundation SAB [includes] leaders in brain health research who understand the mechanics that cause someone to act in a way that jeopardizes public health and safety," said Richman, the foundation's CEO, who, like Hensel, is a scientist. "We want to understand the 'why' behind the behavior, and then our hope is to prevent it from happening again."

"Science on the origins of violence, especially the neurobiological origins of violence, has been appallingly neglected by federal funding agencies that support research to improve the health and safety of taxpayers," said Moffitt. "Through the Avielle Foundation, the families of victims of violence can demand more and better research and make it happen."