University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Promotes Rebecca Price, PhD, to Professor of Psychiatry
We are pleased to announce that Rebecca Price, PhD, has been promoted to Professor of Psychiatry by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
Dr. Price earned her PhD in clinical psychology from Rutgers University, having completed her clinical internship at the University of Pittsburgh/UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital (WPH). She remained in Pittsburgh for postdoctoral research training in the Department’s National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Clinical Research Training for Psychologists T32 program.
An expert in transformative approaches to the treatment of depression and suicide, Dr. Price conducts research focused on studying how the mind processes information in anxiety, depression, and suicidality. Her work employs advanced techniques in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), pupillometry, eye tracking, and neurocognitive tasks. Among Dr. Price’s novel interventions for depression, suicidality, and anxiety, she conducted the first randomized controlled trial of ketamine treatment for suicidal patients, the first studies to combine neuromodulatory and/or ketamine infusion with novel cognitive bias training computer tasks, and she was the first to use a novel classification system for detecting data-driven subgroups of individuals using neural functional connectivity data. In a randomized controlled trial published in The American Journal of Psychiatry, Dr. Price demonstrated that a novel intervention she developed extended ketamine’s rapid antidepressant effect.
Dr. Price currently leads two NIMH-funded R01 grants. The first tests the use of non-invasive brain stimulation, coupled with a computer-based habit-override task, to modulate activity in a target brain region and measure effects on compulsive behaviors. The second study tests the effectiveness and feasibility of delivering a brief digital intervention, designed to rehabilitate feelings of self-worth, as an adjunct to intravenous ketamine treatments.
Dr. Price has published her research in numerous influential journals and has presented her findings at scientific conferences including the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, the International Conference on Ketamine and Related Compounds, and the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. She has received multiple honors including a Society of Biological Psychiatry A.E. Bennett Award, Donald F. Klein Early Career Investigator Award from the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, and University of Pittsburgh Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award. In addition, Dr. Price was named an Association for Psychological Science Rising Star.
Dr. Price has made outstanding contributions to the training of the next generation of scientists and serves as co-director of the WPH Clinical Psychology Internship Program. In addition, she has provided research mentorship for undergraduate, graduate, and medical students; postdoctoral scholars and research staff; as well as residents in the Psychiatry Research Pathway.
“Dr. Price is an internationally recognized expert in the neurobiological and neurocognitive basis of disturbances in affect and anxiety, with an impressive portfolio of high-impact, transdisciplinary, translational research that bridges cognitive, affective, developmental, and clinical approaches to both psychology and neuroscience,” said David Lewis, MD (Chair, Department of Psychiatry). “She is an outstanding clinical and research teacher and mentor, and has made numerous superb contributions to a wide range of Departmental activities.”
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Price!