On his arrival at Downstate Dr. Rosenblum established the internationally recognized Primate Behavior Laboratory and has served as Director since its creation. The laboratory is the largest of its type on the east coast of the United States, with a primary focus on the creation of primate models of developmental psychiatric disorders applying the methods of comparative psychology, while maintaining the largest colony of bonnet macaques in the world. During the past 45 years, the laboratory’s research efforts – primarily studying the factors affecting various dimensions of biobehavioral development by systematically evaluating mother-infant relations and development in more than 1300 infants -- has been supported by the university, various agencies of the National Institutes of Health, private foundations, and the pharmaceutical industry. The Primate Behavior Laboratory has also housed colonies and conducted research with pigtail macaques and squirrel monkeys.

Dr. Rosenblum has been the recipient of two consecutive Research Scientist Awards from the NIMH, has authored more than 220 publications, has served as an editor of 15 scholarly volumes and has lectured to academic and scholarly audiences worldwide. He is a past President of the International Society of Developmental Psychobiology and has served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Center for Sexuality and Religion, the Science Advisory Board of The Kinsey Institute for Sex, Gender &. Reproduction, and the Advisory Board of the New England Regional Primate Research Center. He has been a member of the editorial boards of eight scientific journals and scientific review committees of the NIMH and NIH. Dr. Rosenblum was the honoree of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development conference “Honoring Leonard A. Rosenblum’s Contributions to the Science of Primate Development,” Puerto Rico, 2000.