Research Programs

Departmental Faculty Research Interests

Petros Levounis, M.D.:
Interest: Psychotherapy, addiction, psychiatry teaching, gay and lesbian mental health
Dr. Levounis is a Professor of Psychiatry and his area of expertise are psychotherapy and psychopharmacology of addiction and co-occurring psychiatric disorders, teaching in psychiatry, gay and lesbian mental health, and behavioral addictions.

Rashi Aggarwal, M.D.
Interest: Empathy and wellness, stigma and discrimination, international medical graduate education, training and adjustment
Dr. Aggarwal is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry. Her recent work focuses on empathy and wellness amongst trainees, stigma and discrimination against psychiatric patients, quality of life among residents, adjustment issues among international medical graduates, graduate and postgraduate education.

Ozlem Gunal, M.D., P.h.D.
Interest: Neurobiological basis of psychiatric disorders
Dr. Gunal is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry. Her research focus is to understand the changes in synaptic function and plasticity in rodent models of neuropsychiatric disorders, identify the deficits in pathways, target proteins, which may contribute to the pathophysiology of these disorders, mainly autism and related disorders, and then to attempt interventions in the model systems. Visit Dr. Gunal's website here.

Douglas Opler, M.D.
Interest: Psychosomatic medicine and CL psychiatry, psychopharmacology

Active Projects

Resident wellness study: An intervention to decrease burnout and increase resiliency and happiness (Principal Investigator: Rashi Aggarwal, M.D.)

Depression prevalence, diagnosis, treatment and stigma in the outpatient oncology population (Principal Investigator: Rashi Aggarwal, M.D.)

Resident attitudes regarding wellness (Principal Investigator: Rashi Aggarwal, M.D.)

Developmentally sensitive regulatory mechanisms of synapse assembly and function
(Principal Investigator: Ozlem Gunal, M.D., Ph.D.) NIMH
IRB/IACUC approval: IACUC, expiration date April 12, 2018

Understanding the extracellular matrix regulation in cognitive profile of Neurofibromatosis 1 as a therapeutic tool
(Principal Investigator: Ozlem Gunal)
IRB/IACUC approval: IACUC, April 12, 2018