University of Pittsburgh        
      
INSIDE PITT PSYCHIATRY
A "one-of-a-kind" annual event, the Department of Psychiatry's Clinician Educator Showcase, highlights the inventive improvements in clinical practice and teaching methods that have emerged from the collaborative relationship between early-career clinician educators and experienced mentors.  Click here to read more about it.
 

Michael Travis, MD   

Dr. Michael Travis, who has played a major role in developing and implementing programming to enhance training experiences for our residents, received AAP's Psychiatric Education Award. This award recognizes innovative and exemplary psychiatric educators and educational programs at the medical school, residency and faculty development levels for their outstanding contributions to educating non-psychiatrists and/or the general public about psychiatry. Read more.

Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic    

In its most recent Best Hospitals Honor Roll, US News & World Report ranked WPIC among the Top 10 psychiatry programs in the country on multiple measures, including clinical excellence and psychiatry residency training. Read more.


 

 
  

First Time R01 Awardee: Susanne Ahmari, MD, PhD    

A researcher's first R01 grant is an important milestone in their career as an independent scientist. Investigators in the Department of Psychiatry that transitioned from career development awards to their first R01 awards during the past year are embarking on the next phase of their academic careers and represent the diversity of research interests in the department. Read more.

  

Joshua Morra, MD, PhD

 
Under the mentorship of Dr. Charles Bradberry, Dr. Joshua Morra (a PGY3 resident at WPIC) investigates the neuronal encoding of drug-related cues in the primate brain using techniques from both experimental and computational translational neuroscience. He was awarded the 2014 NIMH Outstanding Resident Award at the annual NIH meeting in Bethesda in the fall. Read more.

  

J. Richard Jennings, PhD with Maurits van der Molen, PhD    
In recognition of his seminal and career-long conceptual, empirical, and methodological contributions to the field of psychophysiology, Dr. Richard Jennings received the Distinguished Contributions to Psychophysiology Award from the Society for Psychophysiological Research.  Read more.

 

Hot Publication    

Dr. Bernie Devlin, one of four principal investigators leading the Autism Sequencing Consortium (ASC), and his colleagues scrutinized DNA sequence data from the largest autism sample to date to identify rare changes that increased the number of definitive autism genes almost threefold. The findings of this study appear in the journal Nature. Read more.

Mary Phillips, MD     
The American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) presented Mary L. Phillips, MD, MD (CANTAB) with the prestigious Joel Elkes Research Award in recognition of her outstanding clinical research contributions to neuropsychopharmacology, and to increasing our understanding of self-regulatory processes as they affect mental function and behavior in disease and well-being. Read more.

Cristin McDermott, MD

 
The Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has appointed Cristin McDermott, MD as a Resident Member of the organization's Review Committee for Psychiatry. Dr. McDermott is a PGY3 resident in the Triple Board Program at WPIC and a member of the Academic Administrator Clinician Educator Track. Read more.

  

Hot Publication

 

A study by Drs. Verrico and Lewis, and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh, showed that acute THC exposure during a time period in adolescence selectively impairs spatial but not object working memory.  The results of this study were published in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Read more.

 

Judith Morgan, PhD    
Judith Morgan, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, was selected for the Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation Fellowship Program in Child and Adolescent Depression. The two-year, $60,000 award will provide Dr. Morgan with support for her project on the development of adolescent depression. Read more.

 

David J. Kupfer, MD    

The David J. Kupfer Residency Research Fellowship is a new program designed to support the research endeavors and career development of exceptional psychiatry residents. The award provides up to $50,000 in support for research projects and for training activities that will promote career development as physician-scientists. Read more.

David Lewis, MD    

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has awarded Dr. David Lewis with its most notable research award: The APA Award for Research in Psychiatry. Since 1949, this prize has been awarded annually by the association in recognition of a single distinguished contribution, a body of work, or a lifetime contribution that has had a major influence on the field of psychiatry. Read more.
 
  

Heather Joseph, DO & Justin Schreiber, DO, MPH    

Heather Joseph, DO and Justin Schreiber, DO, MPH were selected for American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) Educational Outreach Program Awards. The awards provided Drs. Joseph and Schreiber with the opportunity to participate at the AACAP Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA, October 20 - October 25, 2014. Read more.
 
  

Hot Publication    

Utilizing a cohort of women across the nation, Dr. Rebecca Thurston and her colleagues tested whether a history of childhood abuse was related to subclinical CVD among midlife women without clinical CVD. The findings have been widely featured by the media, including Time Magazine. To read more, click here.


 

 
  
Rebecca Price, PhD    
Rebecca Price, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, was awarded the Donald Klein Award from the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) for her paper titled 'Looking under the hood of the dot-probe task: An fMRI study in anxious youth'.  The award recognizes the best original research papers by early career investigators. Read more.

 

Meryl Butters, MD    

The biological mechanisms underlying cognitive impairment in LLD are complex and likely involve abnormalities in multiple pathways, or 'cascades,' reflected in specific biomarkers. Dr. Meryl Butters and colleagues evaluated peripheral (blood-based) to find evidence for biological pathways associated with cognitive impairment in older adults with LLD. The results of this study were published in Molecular Psychiatry. Read more.

 
A graduate of the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine and WPIC's Triple Board Residency Training Program, Dr. Roberto Ortiz-Aguayo was appointed as an APM Fellow this last fall. He has been a highly active member of the organization since 2011. Read more.

  

Hot Publication    

A Study by Drs. Sweet, MacDonald, and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh investigated synaptic protein networks in the auditory cortex of schizophrenia patients. They observed significant changes distributed throughout the protein network. Some of these changes were linked to measures of lost synaptic connectivity in the auditory cortex, suggesting that these protein changes may contribute to schizophrenia symptoms. Read more. 

Annual Research Day Event

 
The Department of Psychiatry's 14th Annual Research Day attracted the largest number of participants in the history of the event. Research Day is an important tradition that celebrates the diverse basic, translational, clinical and health services research in the Department of Psychiatry. Read more.

  
        
Top: Participants of the Department's Research Day event enjoyed their rooftop lunch with a view of the Cathedral of Learning. Bottom left: David Volk, MD, PhD, Erika Forbes, PhD, Tammy Chung, PhD were recipients of the "Reviewer of the Year" award in recognition of their contributions to the Department's internal grant review process. Bottom right: Keynote speaker for Research Day, Paul A. Pilkonis, PhD.
        
Top left: Eva Szigethy, MD, PhD and Frank Lotrich, MD at the annual AACAP meeting in San Diego. Top right: Psychiatry resident, Justin Schreiber, DO, MPH, together with Chief of Clinical Affairs, Kenneth Nash, MD at AACAP. Bottom left: Abigail Schlesinger, MD and Kathy Guatteri, RN, BSN, MBA receive an APA Silver Award in recognition of the Children's Community Pediatrics Behavioral Health Services in the Pediatric Medical Home initiative as a national model of creative service delivery. Bottom right: Keynote speaker for the Department's Clinician Educator Showcase, Ann Thompson, MD, pictured with the Department Chair, David Lewis, MD.
 
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