Neuroscience Fellows

Atheir Abbas, Ph.D, Leon Levy Fellowship

Dr. Abbas earned his B.S. from Case Western Reserve where he graduated magna cum laude. While in the NIH-funded Medical Scientist Training Program at Case Western Reserve University he earned his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees. At Case, his research interests focused on the role of serotonin receptors in cognitive processes, regulation of serotonin receptor function in the brain, and mechanisms of actions of serotonergic drugs.

Dr. Abbas is the author of a dozen publications in scientific journals including the Journal of Neuroscience, Neuron, Nature, Nucleic Acids Research, and Pyschopharmacology. His research projects included a report on the molecular underpinnings of serotonergic-glutamatergic crosstalk; and an article on a novel method for measuring post-transcripitional RNA editing of serotonin 5-HT2c receptors. He recently received the Ray A. and Robert L. Kroc award for outstanding research.

The Levy Fellowship will enable Dr. Abbas to study neural correlates of psychiatric disease states using in vivo electophysiologic techniques.

Mohsin Saeed Ahmed, M.D., Leon Levy Neuroscience Fellow

Intern, Psychiatry/Medicine, Columbia University, New York State Pyschiatric Institute, New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Dr. Ahmed  double majored in Biological Sciences and Chemistry at the College of Arts & Sciences at Cornell University. His Junior Year Abroad was at Cambridge University, Robinson College; the Program of Study was Natural Sciences Tripos Parts IB and Part II (Neuroscience). He received his M.D. , and  PhD with Distinction in Neurobiology and Behavior from the Columbia University of Physicians & Surgeons.  He is a member of the Society of Neuroscience.  He  is the recipient of the Titus Munson Coan Prize for “Best Essay in Biological Sciences”, Columbia University, Dean’s Day Research Award (Dr. Alfred P. Steiner Award) and the Columbia University MD/PhD Research Symposium Award. His PhD research, published in Neuron, was presented at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Meeting on Neural Circuits.

Dr. Ahmed plans to expand his expertise in neural physiology and optical techniques to explore neural circuits affected by neuropsychiatric diseases. His work will be focused toward identifying neural substrates for therapeutic intervention and the development of novel neuromodulatory treatment.

Cameron Walter Brennan, M.D. Leon Levy Fellow

Dr. Cameron received his B.S., Magna cum Laude, in Neuroscience from Brown University and his M.D., Medicine from Cornell University Medical College. He is presently class instructor at the Gerstner Sloan-Kettering School of Biomedical Sciences. He is an Active Member of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, an Associate Member of the Society of Neuro-Oncolgy and a Provisional Member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. 

Dr. Cameron has been awarded research support from the Abrams Trust Grant, the Geoffrey Beane Cancer Research  Cemter and currently the Starr Foundation. In 2008  he received the Preuss Research Award, Tumor Section from the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The list of  publications in which his work has appeared is too numerous to list. Dr. Cameron has been an invited and keynote speaker at  prominent seminars and symposiums. He gave the keynote address at the 13th International Symposium on Pediatric Neuro-Oncology in 2008 and is an invited speaker at the Congress of Neurological Surgeons Annual Meeting in October, 2010.

Christopher Cselenyi, Ph.D., Leon Levy Fellowship

Christopher Cselenyi earned his B.A. from the University of Miami with majors in English and Biochemistry. His thesis was on epic simile and developed biophysical methods to study an enzyme involved in DNA damage and repair. He earned his Ph.D. and M.D. degrees in the Medical Scientist Training Program at Vanderbilt University. At Vanderbilt, Dr. Cselenyi won awards for “most outstanding Ph.D. training accomplishments” and “most progress in clinical psychiatry”. After his work with child and adolescent patients suffering from psychiatric diseases, he decided to devote his career to understanding neurodevelopmental origins of psychiatric diseases as a child psychiatrist and developmental neurobiologist.

The Levy Fellowship will enable him to address the role of nervous system development on behavior.

G. Sean Escola, M.D., PhD, Leon Levy Neuroscience Fellow

Dr. Escola received a BA in Biochemistry from Columbia University, and a MS in Computer Science from the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University. He holds a PhD, awarded with distinction, in Theoretical Neuroscience from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia.  He expects to receive his MD in 2010 from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. He has done Extra Muros Education at the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit at University College, London and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico. Dr. Escola was the youngest instructor in the Department of Computer Science and has been a  physics instructor in the Summer Medical and Dental Education Program at Columbia University.  Among his awards was the Student Success Network Outstanding Teacher Award and the Medical Scientist Training Program. Dr. Escola has done extensive research, contributed to many publications and participated in several invited talks.

As a Leon Levy Fellow he plans to work on two projects: one a data analysis project and the other is theoretical. The results of these studies may provide information on how psychiatric illness can develop as a failure of appropriate transitioning between brain states such as obsessions, compulsions, etc.

Vilma Gabby, M.D., Leon Levy Assistant Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Medical Director, Anita Saltz Institute of Anxiety and Mood Disorders; Research Psychiatrist, Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research

One of the nation’s leading experts in the clinical treatment of adolescent depression, Dr. Gabbay is also a renowned researcher. Her studies aim to generate knowledge of the neuronal mechanisms that contribute to the development and maintenance of mood disorders in youth with the goal of informing and improving their assessment, treatment, and prevention.  Dr. Gabbay earned her M.D. and her B.S. in Human Sciences from Tel Aviv University in Israel. She completed a residency in general psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a residency in child and adolescent psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine.  Dr. Gabby is mentored by Regina M. Sullivan, Ph.D., Research Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Research Scientist, Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research; and by Rachel G. Klein, PhD., Fascitelli Family Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; Director, Anita Saltz Institute for Anxiety and Mood Disorders, NYU Child Study Center.

Edmund Azeriah Griffin, Jr.,  Leon Levy Neuroscience Fellow

Psychiatry Resident

Dr. Griffin is a Research Fellow in Affective Disorders at the Columbia University Psychiatric Institute.  He has been honored with the National Institute of Mental Health Outstanding Resident Award, the Rock-Sleyster Fellowship for graduating seniors entering psychiatry, Hinton Wright Society, Harvard Medical School, and Ryan Fellow among others. He has been a psychiatry resident at Columbia since 2005 and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Neurobiology Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. He has been a lecturer and taught at Harvard Medical College.  Dr. Griffin’s received a B.A. in Biochemistry at Columbia University and earned both his M.D. and Ph.D. in Neurobiology from Harvard Medical School.

A.M. Clare Kelly, Ph.D., Leon Levy Assistant Professor of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

Dr. Kelly received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Dublin, Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. She completed her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience at Trinity College. Her doctoral research focused on functional neuroimaging of  cognitive control processes, individual differences and practive effects in healthy adults. Dr. Kelly has three years of teaching experience at the undergraduate level and oversees training in functional imaging methods in the lab.

She is a member of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping and the Society for Neuroscience. She has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, The Journal of Neuroscience, Biological Psychiatry, Cerebral Cortex, NeuroImage and the European Journal of Neuroscience.

Jason Thomas Huse, M.D., Ph.D., Leon Levy Foundation Young Investigator

Assistant Attending, Department of Pathology

Jason T. Huse, Ph.D., M.D. works under Dr. Eric Holland. His group studies the impact of miRNA-mediated gene regulation in the evolution of malignant gliomas to develop a large panel of diagnostics for the molecular profiling of gliomas to sort tumors into treatment-relevant subgroupings. These tests, in support of clinical trials, aim to expand the knowledge of comparatively understudied tumors. Results of this work will be presented at the upcoming American Association of Neuropatholgists and Society for Neuro-Oncology meetings.  Dr. Huse has been the recipient of many awards and honors including the Weil Award for the Best Paper in Experimental Neuropathogy presented at the American Association of Neuropathologists Annual Meeting and the Revson/Winston Biomedical Research Fellowship; he has also been an American Brain Tumor Association Fellow. He has won the Louis B. Flexner Student Prize and Saul Wingrad Award for Outstanding Dissertations.  Dr. Huse received his B.A. in Chemistry from Princeton University, and both his Ph.D. in Neuroscience and M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.  Dr. Huse is mentored by Eric C. Holland, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Brain Tumor Center and Emily Tow Jackson Chair in Oncology.

Diego A. Laplagne, Ph.D., Leon Levy Presidential Fellowship in Neuroscience

Dr. Laplagne’s field of interest is consciousness. His research project, described in his mission statement, “The Gateways to Consciousness,” focuses on the brain systems that support awareness or basic consciousness in rodents. Dr. Laplagne previously held a postdoctoral position at the Edmond and Lily Safra International Neuroscience Institute in Brazil, and had a research fellowship for undergraduate students at the University of Buenos Aires.  Dr. Laplagne has a M.Sc. in Biology of Science and a Ph.D. from the School of Sciences, the University of Buenos Aires.  Dr. Laplange is mentored by Cori Bargmann, Ph.D.,  Associate Director of the Shelby White and Leon Levy Center for Mind, Brain and Behavior, Torsten N. Wiesel Professor; and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Laboratory of Neural Circuits and Behavior; and A. James Hudspeth, M.D., Ph.D., F.M. Kirby Professor; Investigator, HHMI, Director of the Laboratory of Sensory Neuroscience, Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He also hopes to collaborate with the laboratories of Dr. Marcelo Magnasco and Dr. Maria Geffen, physicists at Rockefeller who focus on neurobiological questions.

Sean X.  Luo, Leon Levy Neuroscience Fellow

Dr. Luo received a BA, with honors, in Physics and a BS in mathematics from the University of Chicago. His PhD in Computational Neuroscience is from the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience and Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University. He received his MD from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University in May, 2010 and is presently a resident in the Department of Psychiatry, NYSPI, Columbia University Medical Center. He is a member of the Society of Neuroscience and the American Physician Scientist Association. He has had research experience both at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical College and the Department of Neurology, Section of Pediatric Neurology, University of Chicago. He has been invited to speak at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Conference. Dr. Luo has published many research articles. Among his awards are a NIH MSTP Grant and a UCLA Neuroengineering Fellowship.

Dr. Luo hopes to bring new models and tools relevant to understanding the complex, high-dimensional datasets ubiquitous in psychiatry and translational neuroscience.

Adriana Di Martino, M.D., Leon Levy Research Assistant Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

The Phyllis Green and Randolph Cowen Institute for Pediatric Neuroscience

Dr. Di Martino focuses on functional neuroimaging studies of Autism Spectrum Disorders and ADHD.  She hopes to establish a multidisciplinary program of research focused on the neural mechanisms that underlie these disorders. Dr. Di Martino’s current projects encompass examinations of 1) the neuronal correlates of Autism and Autistic traits; and 2) the nature and extent of overlap between ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorders in the clinical, neuropsychological and brain functioning domains.  Her most recent work has been published in Biological Psychiatry, Cerebral Cortex, and the American Journal of Psychiatry. She has been supported by a Young Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression and is the principal investigator of a developmental/exploratory study (R21) to study connectivity of anterior cingulate cortex networks in adults with autism. She has been invited to present her research results at national and international scientific conferences in the U.S., Italy, Germany, and Belgium.  Dr. Di Martino graduated magna cum laude from the University of Cagliari School of Medicine in Italy. She completed residency training in pediatric neurology and child and adolescent psychiatry and began her research in the psychopharmacology of autism at the University of Cagliari.  Dr. DiMartino is mentored by F. Xavier Castellanos, M.D., Brooke and Daniel Neidich Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; Director of Research; Director, Phyllis Green and Randolph Cōwen Institute for Pediatric Neuroscience, NYU Child Study Center; Professor of Radiology; Senior Research Scientist, Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research.

Dr. Mellinghoff, Leon Levy Research Professor

Dr. Mellinghoff  received his M.D. from the Technische Universitat Munchen. He has had postdoctoral training in Moleular Biology at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Currently he is an Assistant Professor at the Weill Cornell Graduate School, Department of Pharmacology and an Assistant Attending in the Department of Neurology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Society of Internal Medicine and American Association of Cancer Research. He has published many research articles, too numerous to list. Dr. Mellinghoff has been an invited lecturer at numerous conferences, most recently at the American Society of Clinical Oncolgy, the American Association for Cancer Research and the Neumors Center for Childhood Cancer Research. He has received many awards including the Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Development Award, the Sontag Foundation Distinguished Scientist Award and the Advanced Clinical Research Award in Glioma from the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Bradley Miller, Ph.D., Leon Levy Fellowship

Dr. Miller earned his BS summa cum laude in Neural Sciences from New York University where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa. As an undergraduate he studied the mechanisms of short term synaptic plasticity and won the Sherrington Award for the best undergraduate neuroscience research. He earned his M.D., Ph.D. degrees from Washington University in Saint Louis. His doctoral research was on the molecular mechanisms of axonal degeneration and was published in Nature Neuroscience.  Dr. Miller has been awarded the O’Leary Prize for outstanding research in neuroscience.

The Levy Fellowship will enable him to use rodent models to explore psychiatric illness at the molecular and circuit levels.

Nasir Hasnain Naqvi, Leon Levy Resident Fellow

Psychiatry Resident

Dr. Naqvi is a Psychiatry Resident, Columbia University/NYS Psychiatric Institute and Postdoctoral Residency Fellow, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.  In 2009, Dr. Naqvi received the Outstanding Resident Award, Division of Intramural Research, National Institute of Mental Health. He is a member of the American Psychiatric Association and the Society for Neuroscience. He has received a Fellowship at the Dartmouth McDonnell-Pew Summer Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, a Dean’s Scholarship, University of Iowa Medical School, and a First Prize for Undergraduate Neuroscience, NYU. He has been a teaching assistant at NYU, the University of Iowa and Columbia University.  Dr. Naqvi received his B.S. in Neuroscience, with honors, NYU, and his M.D. and Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Iowa Medical Scientist Training Program and Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Neuroscience.

Guarav Hiren Patel, Leon Levy Resident Fellow

Psychiatry Resident

Dr. Patel is a Psychiatry Resident, Columbia University/NYS Psychiatric Institute.  As a graduate student, Dr. Patel worked in the Departments of Radiology, Neurology and Anatomy & Neurobiology, at Washington University School of Medicine.  He is a member of the Society for Neuroscience. Among his awards and honors are the National Research Service Award Pre-Doctoral Training Fellowship; a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Research Fellowship; and membership in Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society.  Dr. Patel received his M.D., Ph.D. in the Neurosciences Program, and a B.A., summa cum laude, in Philosophy-Neuroscience & Biology at Washington University.

Georgia Rapti, Ph.D, Leon Levy Fellow

Dr. Rapti received her Bachelors Degree from the Biology Faculty at the University of Athens, an M.S. in Genetics and a Ph.D in Molecular Cellular Biology, with honors from the University of Denis-Diderot, Paris. She won the lst Poster Prize in the 15th European Worm Meeting. She was awarded scholarships from the Bosossakis and Onassis Foundations as well as a fellowship from the Association Francasie des Myopathies. She has made oral and poster presentations at several conferences both in the US and Europe. Dr. Rapti is currrently doing post-doctoral research at Rockefeller University.

Srivatsun Sadagopan, Ph.D., Leon Levy Fellow

Dr. Sadagopan received his B.Tech. (Hons) in Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology from the Indian Institute of Technology and his Ph.D in Neuroscience from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  From 2008 to the present Dr. Sadagopan has been a post-doctoral research fellow at the Department of Neurobiology & Physiology at Northwestern University. His articles have been published in the Journal of Neuroscience.  He received the Award for Best Dissertation in Biochemical Engineering, from IIT Kharagpur. Dr. Sadagopan has given talks at the Laboratory of Neural Systems at Rockefeller University, the Department of Neurobiology & Physiology at Northwestern and at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India.

David J. Simon, Ph.D. Leon Levy Fellow

Dr. Simon received his B.S./M.S. in Neuroscience from Brandeis University with Highest Honors in Neuroscience and his Ph.D in Neurobiology from Harvard University. From 2008 to the present, he has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at Genentech. Among his awards were the Poster Award, Gordon Research Conference, and a National Science Foundation IGERT Summer Fellowship. His articles have appeared in several publications including the Journal of Neuroscience and the Journal of of Neurobiology.

Yevgeniy B. Sirotin, Ph.D., Leon Levy Presidential Fellowship in Neuroscience

Among his awards and honors Dr. Sirotin received the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research and the Kavli Doctoral Dissertation Award in the Neural Sciences at Columbia University. He received the Reis and Sowl Family Prize in Neuroscience from Brandeis University. He was an invited speaker (ESPCI, Paris) and a Lecturer, SERC School in Neurosciences (IISER, India). He is a member of the Society for Neuroscience.

 Dr. Sirotin received a B.S. / M.S. Summa Cum Laude, in Neuroscience from Brandeis University, a M.A. and M.Ph. in Neurobiology and Behavior from Columbia University. He attained a PhD with distinction in Neuroscience from Columbia University.

Natalie Weder, M.D., Leon Levy Research Assistant Professor of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

Dr. Weder graduated from the residency program in the Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, NYU School 0f Medicine. Her adult psychiatry training was at Yale University. She is a member of the American Psychiatry Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. D. Weder has received fellowships through the American Psychiatry Association, American Academy of Directors of Psychiatric Residency training and the American Psychoanalytic Association. She is the co-author of two books: Comprehensive Review of Psychiatry and Clinical Assessments in Psychiatry. Dr. Weder has been awarded multiple honors including the Pilot Research Award from the Amercian Academy of Child and Adolescent  Psychiatry, the Peter Henderson Award by the American Academy of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training and the Laughlin Fellowship given annually by the American College of Psychiatrists to the 10 residents from the US and Canada most likely to make a significant contribution to the field of psychiatry.