Many congratulations to Daniel Bender, DO (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry), who has received a 2022 UPMC ACES award. This prestigious award honors individuals who regularly go above and beyond. Following residency training in general psychiatry and a clinical fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry, Dr. Bender joined the Department of Psychiatry faculty in 2019 as a child and adolescent psychiatrist. Dr...

The Services for Teens at Risk (STAR)-Center is a nationally recognized suicide prevention program that combines clinical and outreach services designed to combat the problem of child and adolescent suicide. The STAR-Center provides outpatient assessment and treatment for depressed and anxious children and teens, and offers acute treatment to depressed and suicidal youth through the Center’s intensive outpatient...

Department of Psychiatry investigators focused on Alzheimer’s Research— Victor Villemagne, MD (Professor of Psychiatry); Tharick Pascoal, MD, PhD (Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology); and Thomas Karikari, PhD (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry)—have recently published studies improving our understanding of biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease. Plasma Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein Is Associated with 18F...

Congratulations to Jessie Northrup, PhD (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry), who has received both the prestigious Slifka/Ritvo Innovation in Autism Research Award, as well as an Early Career Investigator Award from the International Society for Autism Research! Dr. Northrup’s research focuses on emotion regulation in individuals with autism spectrum disorder, with a particular focus on parent-child interactions...

We are delighted to announce that Meredith Wallace, PhD, has received conferral of tenure at the rank of associate professor by the University of Pittsburgh. Trained in both psychiatry research and biostatistics, Dr. Wallace highly regarded in the field of statistics, and a leading investigator in the emerging field of multidimensional sleep health. By incorporating novel statistical methods, such as the...

Alterations in markers of cortical gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) signaling are among the most widely replicated findings in postmortem brain studies of schizophrenia. In the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, consistent findings of lower levels of gene products related to GABA neuron signaling indicates that inhibitory neurotransmission signaling is weaker in people with schizophrenia. However, clarity regarding...

We are thrilled to announce that Rebecca Price, PhD (Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology), has received the 2023 Society of Biological Psychiatry A.E. Bennett Award for Clinical/Translational Research. This award recognizes superb international research in biological psychiatry by young investigators. Dr. Price uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), pupillometry, eye tracking, and...

We are delighted to announce that Dana Tudorascu, PhD, has received conferral of tenure at the rank of associate professor by the University of Pittsburgh. A biostatistician with recognized expertise in neuroimaging data analysis and imaging techniques, Dr. Tudorascu conducts research in three areas: improving brain tissue classifications in the presence of aging markers such as white matter hyperintensities and...

We are delighted to announce that Mary Phillips, MD, MD (Cantab) (Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Clinical and Translational Science, and Bioengineering, and Pittsburgh Foundation-Emmerling Endowed Chair in Psychotic Disorders), has been elected to the prestigious Association of American Physicians (AAP). Dr. Phillips’s membership to the Association was formally recognized at the AAP annual meeting in April...

It’s time (right now!) to register for the Department of Psychiatry Annual Research Day! Date: Thursday, June 8, 2023 Time: 8:30 a.m. – 4:15 p.m. Location: All activities will take place at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall on the Pitt Oakland campus. This full-day event provides an excellent opportunity to meet investigators, learn more about their work, and share expertise and interests with other members of the...