We are thrilled to announce that Frances Wang, PhD, has joined the faculty as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry. Dr. Wang earned her PhD in clinical psychology from Arizona State University and completed her clinical internship at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital. She remained in Pittsburgh for postdoctoral training in the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)-funded Developmental Alcohol...

Many Pitt Psychiatry scientists use postmortem human brain tissue to identify neural alterations associated with mental disorders to guide the development of novel treatments. They do so with confidence that a team of psychologists and psychiatrists have systematically validated the diagnoses of each donor subject. This lifespan review is an uniquely intensive version of a process known as the “psychological...

Please join us in congratulating Jack Rozel, MD, MSL (Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Adjunct Professor of Law), who has been named 2020 Behavioral Healthcare Practitioner of the Year. An expert in emergency psychiatry and crisis intervention, Dr. Rozel is Medical Director, resolve Crisis Services, which provides mental health crisis intervention and stabilization through phone, mobile, walk-in and...

We are delighted to announce that Rachel Vaughn-Coaxum, PhD, has joined the faculty as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry. Dr. Vaughn-Coaxum earned her PhD in clinical psychology from Harvard University. She completed her clinical psychology internship at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital, followed by the Department’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-funded Clinical Research Training for Psychologists T32...

Regular sleep is critical for both health and optimal brain functioning. Sleep deprivation affects several regions within the brain’s reward circuitry, including the nucleus accumbens, the reward processing hub, as well as connected regions such as the amygdala. Changes in these brain regions are involved in impulsivity and increased drive for rewarding stimuli (such as sweet food), common symptoms of sleep...

To identify neurocognitive mechanisms of mood and anxiety disorders, scientists are increasingly employing computational models to map latent decision-making processes onto dissociable neural substrates and clinical phenotypes. However, the reliability of measures used in research in this area up to now has been unclear. In a study recently published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging...

We are delighted to announce that Rasim Diler, MD, has been promoted to Professor of Psychiatry by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Diler earned his medical degree in Istanbul, Turkey and, following a combined residency/fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry at Çukurova University, undertook residency training in child and adolescent psychiatry at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital (WPH)...

We are delighted to announce that Peter Franzen, PhD, has been promoted to Associate Professor of Psychiatry by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. After completing an internship in clinical psychology at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital (WPH), Dr. Franzen received his PhD and joined the Pitt Department of Psychiatry as a postdoctoral scholar and sleep medicine fellow under the mentorship of Daniel...

We are delighted to announce that Priya Gopalan, MD, has been promoted to Associate Professor of Psychiatry by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Gopalan earned her MD from the University of Virginia and completed her residency training in general psychiatry at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital (WPH). She is a consultation-liaison (C-L) psychiatry specialist, as well as an expert in perinatal...

We are delighted to announce that Colleen McClung, PhD, has been appointed Tenured Professor of Psychiatry by the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. McClung’s research focuses on using animal models to understand how circadian rhythm alterations contribute to the liability for substance dependence, as well as for mood disorders such as bipolar disorder and major depression. She is an expert in the application of cutting...