2021 Grand Rounds Trainee Research Award honorees (clockwise from top left): Jeremy Biane, PhD; Elissa Hamlat, PhD; David Kastner, MD, PhD; and Ryan Rampersaud, MD, PhD
Four early career researchers from the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences have been selected to present their scholarship and research at Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Grand Rounds events later this spring as part of a series designed to highlight the work of senior trainees (e.g., residents, child psychiatry fellows, psychology trainees, postdoctoral fellows) at or near the end of their training and help launch their academic careers. Special Grand Rounds sessions in March and April 2021 will each feature formal presentations from two of the selected trainees, followed by a period for questions and discussion with audience members.
Congratulations to the trainees below, who will present their research work on the following dates:
- Jeremy Biane, PhD (April 20) - "Differential Encoding of Emotional Memory Across the Dorsal/Ventral Axis of the Hippocampus" (mentored by Mazen Kheirbek, PhD)
- Elissa Hamlat, PhD (March 16) - "Early Life Adversity, Pubertal Timing, and Epigenetic Age Acceleration" (mentored by Elissa Epel, PhD)
- David Kastner, MD, PhD (March 16) - "Respecting the Complexity of Animal Behavior to Extract Multicomponent Features That Govern Individual Performance" (mentored by Loren Frank, PhD)
- Ryan Rampersaud, MD, PhD (April 20) - "Microbes and Mood: Elucidating Mechanisms to Gut Microbiota-Host Crosstalk in Major Depressive Disorder" (mentored by Synthia Mellon, PhD, and Owen Wolkowitz, MD)
Now in its eighth year, the UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Grand Rounds Trainee Research Award annually selects trainees conducting notable and advanced research through a competitive application process. In addition to presenting their scholarship and research at Grand Rounds events, the recipients will receive additional mentorship and guidance from faculty, the opportunity to discuss their work with department leadership, and special recognition at graduation.
About UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
The UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute are among the nation's foremost resources in the fields of child, adolescent, adult, and geriatric mental health. Together they constitute one of the largest departments in the UCSF School of Medicine and the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, with a mission focused on research (basic, translational, clinical), teaching, patient care, and public service.
UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences conducts its clinical, educational, and research efforts at a variety of locations in Northern California, including Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital; UCSF Medical Centers at Parnassus Heights, Mission Bay, and Mount Zion; UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland; Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center; the San Francisco VA Health Care System; UCSF Fresno; and numerous community-based sites around the San Francisco Bay Area.
About the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences
The UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, established by the extraordinary generosity of Joan and Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill, brings together world-class researchers with top-ranked physicians to solve some of the most complex challenges in the human brain.
The UCSF Weill Institute leverages UCSF’s unrivaled bench-to-bedside excellence in the neurosciences. It unites three UCSF departments—Neurology, Psychiatry, and Neurological Surgery—that are highly esteemed for both patient care and research, as well as the Neuroscience Graduate Program, a cross-disciplinary alliance of nearly 100 UCSF faculty members from 15 basic-science departments, as well as the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, a multidisciplinary research center focused on finding effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders.
About UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF’s primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area.
