Please join us in congratulating Eric Golden, MD (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry), who has received a 2025 UPMC Award for Commitment to Excellence in Service (ACES). The prestigious award, received by less than 1% of UPMC staff annually, honors individuals who routinely go above and beyond. Dr. Golden is medical director of PsychCare+/Network Admissions, overseeing the referral of patients from network hospitals...

Three papers published in Current Psychiatry Reports and Appetite by Christine Call, PhD (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry), and colleagues in the Perinatal Health and Behaviors (PHAB) Lab, highlight advances in our understanding of eating disorders in pregnancy and the perinatal period. Dr. Call’s research aims to equitably promote health during high-risk times for problematic eating and excess weight gain...

Robert Hudak, MD (Professor of Psychiatry), is an expert on the clinical treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a chronic, debilitating, and often misunderstood psychiatric disorder that is characterized by repetitive, compulsive behaviors, as well as obsessions. Dr. Hudak is the psychiatrist at the UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital (WPH) Center for Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders Intensive...

Please join us in congratulating Vernon Nathaniel, MD (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry), who has received a 2025 UPMC Award for Commitment to Excellence in Service (ACES). The prestigious award, received by less than 1% of UPMC staff annually, honors individuals who routinely go above and beyond. Dr. Nathaniel is medical director of WPH’s Community Treatment Teams, which provides outreach and community-based...

Please join us in congratulating Samantha (Sam) Stilson (Grants Specialist III), who has received a 2025 UPMC Award for Commitment to Excellence in Service (ACES) for her outstanding work in the Department of Psychiatry’s Office of Grants and Contracts (OGC). The prestigious ACES award, received by less than 1% of UPMC staff annually, honors individuals who routinely go above and beyond. Sam’s nomination included...

The 2026 Department of Psychiatry Interventional Psychiatry Showcase, attended by faculty, staff, and trainees, focused on the use of ketamine and the use of ketosis in psychiatric treatment. Through lively lunchtime roundtables, followed by afternoon presentations and panel discussions, attendees learned about new research using each of these methods, and about their applications for treating a range of...

The Department of Psychiatry is delighted to announce the results of the 2026 Residency Match for the General Psychiatry, Child, Triple Board, and Family Medicine/Psychiatry tracks. Please welcome the new incoming PGY1 psychiatry residents: GENERAL PSYCHIATRY Katherine Abraham (Baylor College of Medicine) Brianna Brooks (University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine) Chinemeh Eyiba (University of Pittsburgh School of...

The UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital (WPH) Center for Interventional Psychiatry (CIP) outpatient clinic has long provided cutting-edge, specialized treatment for individuals whose psychiatric disorders have not responded to first-line treatment such as psychotherapy and medication. Patients with conditions including treatment-resistant depression, catatonia, persistent mania, difficult-to-treat schizophrenia, and...

We are pleased to announce that Stephen Smagula, PhD, has received conferral of tenure at the rank of associate professor by the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Smagula’s research focuses on circadian rhythm disruptions as a causal risk for depression, suicidal ideation, and dementia in older people. The overarching goal of his research is to determine if treating sleep problems behaviorally reduces depression and...

We are pleased to report that Pitt Psychiatry faculty members have received the following recognitions: Paul D. MacLean Award for Outstanding Neuroscience Research in Psychosomatic Medicine Layla Banihashemi, PhD (Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Bioengineering), was chosen to receive the Society for Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine’s Paul D. MacLean Award for Outstanding Neuroscience Research in...