University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Promotes Alex Dombrovski, MD, to Professor of Psychiatry
We are pleased to announce that Alex Dombrovski, MD, has been promoted to Professor of Psychiatry by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
Dr. Dombrovski received his MD from Moscow Medical Academy in Russia, then undertook an internship in internal medicine and residency in psychiatry. He completed psychiatry residency training and a geriatric psychiatry fellowship at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital, and was recruited to the University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychiatry faculty. Dr. Dombrovski received conferral of tenure in 2021.
Dr. Dombrovski is an internationally recognized leader in the cognitive neuroscience of decision-making in psychopathology. He studies the decision-making process using behavioral experiments, cognitive computational modeling, and reinforcement learning, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electro- and magneto-encephalography, and peripheral physiology. He is known for pioneering work in the cognitive factors and neural mechanisms of suicide in geriatric populations, his early role in the field of computational psychiatry, and his contributions to knowledge about the progression from suicidal thought to suicidal action. Dr. Dombrovski has published his research in top journals including JAMA Psychiatry, Neuropsychopharmacology, and Journal of Abnormal Psychology. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, as well as a board member of the Global Initiative on Psychiatry-USA, the American branch of the Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry.
Dr. Dombrovski currently leads a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) R01 examining reward learning in late-life suicide, testing the idea that people at risk for suicide fail to make good decisions in a crisis. A second NIMH R01 is focused on the psychobiology of suicidal behavior in borderline personality disorder. In addition,
Dr. Dombrovski is contact principal investigator of a third NIMH R01 focused on neurocomputational studies of mood aimed at helping clinicians to understand the brain and behavior processes that underlie mood swings. He has expanded his focus recently to the study of anxiety and personality disorders, and collaborates on research pertaining to the antidepressant placebo effect and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
A gifted and tremendously effective teacher and highly sought-after mentor, Dr. Dombrovski is a recipient of the Department of Psychiatry’s Outstanding Mentor Award. He is highly active in resident teaching, as well as mentoring graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. Dr. Dombrovski serves on the teaching faculty of the NIMH-funded Advanced Research Institute in Geriatric Psychiatry, the NIMH-funded Training for Transformative Discovery in Psychiatry T32 postdoctoral research training program, and the Bioengineering in Psychiatry T32 predoctoral training program.
“Dr. Dombrovski has conducted innovative and creative research that is critical to improving our understanding of suicide and our potential to develop therapeutic treatments. His research is highly influential, and he is known among his peers as an exceptionally meticulous scientist,” said David Lewis, MD (Chair, Department of Psychiatry). “In addition, Dr. Dombrovski is a generous collaborator, as well as an outstanding teacher and mentor, who contributes much to the academic and scientific communities.”
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Dombrovski!