Syed Muhammad A. Mehdi, MD MS

Biography

Syed Muhammad A. Mehdi, MD, MS, is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Geriatric Psychiatry Unit at UTHealth Houston/McGovern Medical School, and the Founding Program Director of the forthcoming Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship. His clinical and research interests center on aging, resilience, cognition, and neuropsychiatric disorders, with a particular focus on understanding the social, biological, and clinical factors that shape cognitive and psychiatric outcomes across later life.

His research examines the intersection of lipid metabolism, depression, and cognitive outcomes across the lifespan. Building on this work, his current research integrates aging biology, psychopharmacology, peripheral biomarkers, and longitudinal cognitive outcomes to investigate biological and contextual signatures of resilience and vulnerability that may help explain differences in cognitive outcomes among older adults with bipolar disorder, better understand the mechanisms underlying cognitive resilience, and advance biologically informed precision psychiatry.

Dr. Mehdi is developing an interdisciplinary Aging, Resilience, and Mental Health research program focused on understanding and ultimately preventing cognitive decline in older adults with psychiatric disorders through biologically and contextually informed approaches to risk stratification and precision psychiatry. His recent recognitions include the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation Young Investigator Award and the UTHealth McGovern Faculty Champion Award