University of Pittsburgh Awards Tenure to Yanhua Huang, PhD
We are delighted to announce that Yanhua Huang, PhD, has been appointed Tenured Associate Professor of Psychiatry by the University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Huang’s research focuses on the role of changes in sleep on neural plasticity in reward circuits, with a focus on the association between sleep loss and addiction. She is currently the PI of five federally funded grants, including a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)-funded R01 focused on synaptic reorganization in drug addiction. Through this research, Dr. Huang was the first to discover the generation of silent synapses in the ventral striatum after cocaine exposure, a critical finding that holds promise for drug addiction research. Dr. Huang’s additional grants from NIDA and the National Institute of Mental Health further examine the interplay of sleep and addiction.
Dr. Huang has been recognized through multiple research honors and awards, including a NARSAD Young Investigator Award and a Hamilton Family Award for Basic Neuroscience Research in Psychiatry. She has presented her research on the association between REM sleep an cocaine craving nationally and internationally and is a longtime member of the Society for Neuroscience. In 2019, she was invited to serve as an ad hoc reviewer for the Pathophysiological Basis of Mental Disorders and Addictions study section at the National Institutes of Health.
“Dr. Huang is an innovative investigator who has generated seminal findings in her field. Her investigations have motivated further research by others and have potential for exciting clinical implications. In addition, she is a thoughtful and dedicated educator for her mentees—many of whom have launched their own successful research careers.” said David Lewis, MD (Chair, Department of Psychiatry).
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Huang!