University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Promotes Danella Hafeman, MD, PhD, to Associate Professor of Psychiatry
We are delighted to announce that Danella Hafeman, MD, PhD, has been promoted to Associate Professor of Psychiatry by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
Dr. Hafeman earned her MD and her PhD in epidemiology from Columbia University. She then came to Pittsburgh for residency training at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital (WPH), and following a clinical fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry, Dr. Hafeman undertook National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded T32 postdoctoral training in translational neuroscience and in child and adolescent mental health. She joined the Department of Psychiatry as assistant professor in 2017.
Dr. Hafeman’s research focuses on the prediction of bipolar disorder in offspring of parents with bipolar disorder. She has made critical contributions to improving our understanding of the risk for bipolar disorder in offspring of parents with bipolar, including the creation of the first risk calculator for predicting bipolar disorder in at-risk youth. Dr. Hafeman has also tested a mindfulness intervention for youth at high risk for bipolar disorder and identified changes in connectivity between the posterior cingulate cortex and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex as a marker of resilience and a possible target for mindfulness.
Dr. Hafeman has received a NARSAD Young Investigator Award, a Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation Fellowship for Depression, and a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) K23 career development award. She is currently principal investigator of an NIMH R01 grant focused on testing neurobehavioral mechanisms of a mindfulness-based intervention to target mood lability in early adolescents at elevated risk for developing mood disorders. Dr. Hafeman is also site PI of a Milken Foundation grant focused on treatment for youth with or at high risk for bipolar disorder, and co-investigator on three NIH R01 grants. Last year, Dr. Hafeman was elected an associate member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.
Dr. Hafeman is a clinical expert in pediatric mood disorders. She is board-certified in general psychiatry and in child psychiatry, and serves as an attending physician at WPH’s Child and Adolescent Bipolar Spectrum (CABS) clinic, where she staffs clinical assessments with particularly complex patients, and carries an ongoing caseload of patients for medication management.
As an educator, Dr. Hafeman is director of the Psychiatry Research Pathway (PRP) program for residents. She has taught undergraduate, graduate, and medical students, as well as psychiatry residents and fellow clinicians.
“Since joining the Department of Psychiatry faculty, Dr. Hafeman has sustained an innovative, independent, and significant research program on pediatric bipolar disorder,” said David Lewis, MD (Chair, Department of Psychiatry). “She is a gifted clinician, as well as an outstanding teacher and mentor who has made valuable contributions to the Department’s educational mission, particularly with respect to resident training.”
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Hafeman!