University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Promotes Ashley Parr, PhD, to Research Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
We are pleased to announce that Ashley Parr, PhD, has been promoted to Research Assistant Professor of Psychiatry by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
Dr. Parr received her PhD in neuroscience from Queen’s University (Ontario, Canada), then came to the University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychiatry for postdoctoral training in developmental neuroscience. She joined the Psychiatry faculty in 2022. Dr. Parr uses multimodal neuroimaging techniques—including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), resting state fMRI, ultra-high field (7T) MR, positron emission tomography (PET), tissue iron, and MR spectroscopy—to characterize neural systems underlying the developmental specialization of executive function. Her long-term goals are to characterize mesocorticolimbic circuit development supporting the transition from adolescent to adult levels of decision-making; translate normative findings to neuropsychiatric disorders that emerge in adolescence; and develop research tools for behavioral and brain quantification in pediatric populations.
Dr. Parr leads a Brain and Behavior Research Foundation NARSAD Young Investigator Award to study in vivo molecular markers and mediators of mesocorticolimbic circuit development underlying human adolescent decision-making. She additionally collaborates as co-investigator on multiple grants funded by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Parr has authored peer-reviewed articles published in influential journals and presented numerous invited lectures at scientific meetings and at academic institutions.
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Parr!