Rajita Sinha PhD

Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry and Professor in the Child Study Center and of Neurobiology; Director, Yale Interdisciplinary Stress Center; Chief, Psychology Section in Psychiatry; Deputy Director, Yale Center for Clinical Investigation (Yale CTSA)

---

Departments & Organizations

Yale Medical Group

Neurobiology

Child Study Center

Psychiatry: Connecticut Mental Health Center | Stress & Addiction Clinical Research Program | Psychology Section: Division of Substance Abuse | Yale Stress Center

---

Biography

Rajita Sinha, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University and Director of the Yale Stress Center that focuses on understanding the effects of stress on behavior, in order to improve health outcomes relating to maladaptive behaviors. She has also served as the Director of Addiction Services at the Connecticut Mental Health Center. She is internationally known for her pioneering research on the mechanisms linking stress to addiction. Her research objectives are threefold: (a) to elucidate sex-specific neurobiological mechanisms underlying stress in humans; (b) to examine neurobiological alterations in stress and reward circuits associated with addictive disorders; and (c) to develop effective addiction prevention and treatment strategies that target stress and emotion regulation in individuals both at-risk for and those with addiction problems. These objectives are being accomplished through a series of NIH funded research projects and she has published widely on these topics. She has served on many NIH special emphasis panels, review committees and workshops, presented at numerous national and international conferences, and her work is widely cited.