Clinical Research

Gail Bernstein, MD

Dr. Bernstein’s primary research interests include anxiety disorders and obsessive compulsive disorders (OCD) in children and adolescents. She is currently completing an investigation of brain imaging in adolescents with OCD and healthy controls.

Christine Conelea, PhD, LP

Dr. Conelea's research focuses on the etiology and treatment of Tourette Syndrome and other tic disorders, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and anxiety disorders. She is particularly interested in understanding how the brain, environment, and psychosocial factors interact to impact symptoms and treatment outcome.

Kathryn Cullen, MD

Dr. Cullen's research primarily focuses on depression and related problems in adolescents. Her research approaches include the use of brain imaging to examine the biology underlying these problems in teenagers, and to elucidate the mechanisms of existing treatments for depression.

Meredith Gunlicks-Stoessel, PhD, LP

Dr. Gunlicks-Stoessel’s research focuses on understanding how attachment relationships during adolescence can promote healthy emotion regulation and wellbeing or contribute to the development of psychopathology.

Suma Jacob, MD, PhD

Dr. Suma Jacob’s research studies the effects of novel interventions on social functioning and repetitive behaviors for both children and adults. Her current research focuses on biomarkers, neurochemical/genetic risk and treatments related to hormonal systems like oxytocin.

Kelvin Lim, MD

Dr. Lim's research interest is the use of innovative magnetic resonance imaging techniques to study brain disorders. His primary focus has been the use of multiple modalities available with magnetic resonance to characterize the brain in schizophrenia, aging, traumatic brain injury and cocaine dependence.

Jessica Nielson, PhD

Dr. Nielson is a neurobiologist and data scientist working at the intersection of informatics and psychiatry to understand the neurobiological mechanisms of mental health disorders that follow trauma, including PTSD, depression, addiction and schizophrenia.

Karina Quevedo, PhD

Dr. Quevedo's lab has collected functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) data while teens think about- and see themselves while in the scanner. They are currently finishing data processing on three neuroimaging of tasks that tap self-knowledge and social interaction as well as diffusion tension imaging.

Sheila Specker, MD

Dr. Specker is dedicated to conducting research that will help adolescents, young adults, and their families address their alcohol and other drug use, problem gambling, and other addictions or harmful behaviors. She aims to reduce the harmful effects of these behaviors and promote a healthy way of life.

Scott Sponheim, PhD

Dr. Sponheim's primary research focus is to understand how genetic risk for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are expressed in the functions of the brain. He uses recordings of brain electrical activity (EEG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measures of brain function and other methods to map the expression of genetic vulnerability.

Alik Widge, MD, PhD

Dr. Widge and his team develop new ways of modifying brain circuits to treat mental illness. they take a "dimensional" approach, breaking mental disorders into their core components that cut across diagnoses.

Jeffrey Wozniak, PhD

Dr. Wozniak conducts advanced neuroimaging studies in Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). His research group is part of the Collaborative Initiative on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (CIFASD) and is involved in CIFASD's ongoing multi-site imaging, neurobehavioral, genetic, and facial dysmorphology projects.