News

Ryan Logan, PhD Appointed to the Department of Psychiatry Faculty

Congratulations to Ryan Logan, PhD on his appointment as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

The focus of Dr. Logan's research is the role of circadian rhythms in addiction and other psychiatric diseases. As an undergraduate student at the University of Maine, he studied the effects of circadian disruption on alcohol drinking behaviors using rodent models, and developed an interest in the role of circadian rhythms in addiction and other psychiatric diseases. Dr. Logan obtained his doctoral degree in Neuroscience from the University of Maine where he investigated the effects of acute and chronic alcohol administration and withdrawal on circadian behavior utilizing multiple genetic animal models, and various pharmacological and behavioral paradigms.

As a postdoctoral scholar at Rutgers University, Dr. Logan investigated circadian rhythms, immunity, and cancer, and later trained with Dr. Elissa Chesler at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine to gain experience in functional genomics and computational biology. This work laid the foundation for his postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Colleen McClung in the Translational Neuroscience Program at the University of Pittsburgh. Under the mentorship of Dr. McClung, Dr. Logan acquired basic research training in animal models of addiction and mood disorders. He is successfully combining his previous research experience with these newly acquired skills to pursue a career as an independent scientist.

With funding from a NARSAD Young Investigator award, Dr. Logan is studying the epigenetic mechanisms of bipolar disorder using an animal model of mania-like behavior, with the hope of identifying novel epigenetic targets for the treatment of bipolar disorder. He also is the recipient of a K01 career development grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which will enable him to examine the role of the molecular clock in the nucleus accumbens to regulate drug reward and the process of addiction.

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Logan to the faculty.