CaDRE Award Winners
2022-2023
Edison Leung, MD
Edison is a PGY 4 Research Track Resident. His research studies focus on the systematic changes that occur in co-misuse of alcohol and opioids. The goal of his CADRE Program project titled “Determining the mechanistic and neurocircuitry changes in co-misuse of alcohol and opioid use disorders compared to mono-misuse of alcohol or opioids” is to examine in post-mortem samples, the transcriptomic, proteomic, epigenetic, and neurocircuitry changes that occur in co-misusers of alcohol and opioids compared to mono-misusers of those substances as well as to link those changes to the accompanying psychological autopsy.
Heather E. Webber, PhD
Heather is an Instructor (research faculty) at the Center for Neurobehavioral Research. Dr. Webber primarily employs human electrophysiological methods to study the underlying neural mechanisms of motivation, reward and punishment sensitivity, and emotional functioning and how these processes contribute to addiction. In the CaDRE project titled “Identifying Electrophysiological Targets for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for Cocaine Use Disorder”, she will assess the effects of brain stimulation to the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (compared to sham stimulation) on electroencephalogram markers of reward functioning in individuals with cocaine use disorder.
Camila Lima, PhD
Camila is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Faillace Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Her research interests, underlying her work for the past ten years, have been largely focused on understanding the pathways and biological mechanisms underlying bipolar disorder pathophysiology and its treatment. In the CaDRE Program award, she will conduct the study “Prenatal COVID-19 Exposure and Epigenetic Aging: Implications for pediatric neurocognitive development”.
Vijayasree Giridharan, PhD
Vijayasree is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Faillace Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Giridharan’s long-term goal is to understand the pathophysiology of neuropsychiatric disorders that will help develop treatment strategies. Currently, she is investigating the infection-induced long-term behavioral outcome in experimental models. In the CaDRE program project titled “Influence of Post COVID-19 on neuropsychiatric complications”, she will study the role of gut microbiome and inflammation on long COVID-induced neuropsychiatric sequelae.
2023-2024
Samuel Marsan, M.A.
Sam (he/él) is a psychology intern at UTHealth Doctoral Psychology Internship Program (UTHDPIP). As a psychology intern from Duke University, Sam is the first predoctoral trainee to receive the CaDRE award. His CaDRE project seeks to build upon his dissertation topic and aims to develop a comprehensive self-report measure of Body-Image-related Quality of Life for Transgender Adolescents (BIQoL-TA). This project relies on mixed methods that encompass Applied Thematic Analysis (ATA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approaches for psychometric validation. The CaDRE award resourced Sam not only with a mentorship team of experts, but also with the opportunity to expand recruitment and research compensation of this hard-to-reach population. A successfully validated BIQoL-TA may have implications in enhancing the informed consent process for gender affirming medical treatments. What’s more, it may enable transgender adolescents and their caregivers to consider the potential risks and benefits of medical interventions as well as potential gains and losses to their quality of life. Moreover, this tool may expand medical providers’ understanding of gender affirming treatment outcomes that consider body-image-related quality of life on par with biological function outcomes.
Rafaela C. Cordeiro, PhD
Rafaela is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Faillace Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Her research focuses on translating basic research discoveries into clinical applications for bipolar disorder biomarkers. By merging neurocognitive and clinical data with multi-omics information, including transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, Dr. Cordeiro aims to pinpoint microglial biosignatures with the potential to predict clinical and cognitive outcomes. Her long-term goal is to facilitate early detection and intervention in bipolar disorder, ultimately enhancing the well-being and development of affected children. In the CaDRE program project titled “Metabolic and Inflammatory Pathways Involved in Cognitive Impairments of Children and Adolescents with Early-Onset Bipolar Disorder and High-Risk Offspring of Bipolar Parents,” she investigates the role of inflammation in the familial risk of bipolar disorder, offering promising insights into this complex condition.
Constanza de Dios, PhD
Constanza is an Instructor (Research Faculty) at the Center for Neurobehavioral Research on Addiction. She focuses on applied statistical analyses of clinical research data in the contexts of clinical trials and observational studies. In her CaDRE project (“Developing a prediction algorithm of aggressive incidents in a major psychiatric hospital”), she will use standard and novel machine learning models in identifying aggressive incidents routinely recorded from the electronic health record aggregated over a decade from a large inpatient community mental health hospital. This will provide feasibility data for the development of a clinical decision support tool that can guide organizational decision-making.
Andrea Boscutti, MD
Andrea is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faillace Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. His research interests include processing of medical images and employing machine learning and artificial intelligence architectures for image segmentation and treatment planning for neuromodulation interventions. In the CaDRE Program award, he will conduct the study “Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Guided Low Intensity Focused Ultrasound Stimulation Effect on Amygdala Reactivity and Functional Connectivity”.
Antonio Pagan, PhD
Dr. Pagán is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Faillace Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Pagán’s long-term goal is to understand the neural biomarkers of neuropsychiatric disorders that will help develop treatment strategies to improve outcomes in diverse and underserved communities. Currently, he is adapting an intervention for Latinos with ASD and an intervention for military-dependent young adults with ASD. In the CaDRE program project titled “Pilot testing a military-culture adapted group treatment program for military-dependent, autistic young adults and their parents”, he will conduct separate focus groups with military/veteran parents of young adults with ASD and with military/veteran-dependent young adults with ASD to pilot test an adapted intervention with 20 young adults and parents.
Ashutosh Tripathi, PhD
Ashutosh is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faillace Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. His research focuses on understanding the inflammatory pathways and immune system in chronic stress-induced depression. The CaDRE program project titled “Brain cell-specific characterization of interferon-stimulated genes following chronic stress” aimed to identify the cellular source of interferon-stimulated genes by analyzing single cell type mRNA sequencing in CNS cell subsets such as astrocytes, microglia, and neurons in chronic stress mouse model. The primary goal of the proposal is to clarify the cellular source of interferon-stimulated genes under chronic stress conditions, which could yield new insights into the underlying mechanism(s) of depression.