YSM Science Fellows Program

I am interested in the neural mechanisms underlying decision-making in humans, in individual differences in these mechanisms, and in the possible contribution of decision traits to pathological behavior. Our research focuses on decision-making under uncertainty, and on value learning and encoding. To study these topics we combine behavioral economics methods with functional MRI, as well as eye tracking and physiological measurements.

Kristen Brennand, PhD is the Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Genetics at Yale University School of Medicine. She first established her independent laboratory in the Pamela Sklar Division of Psychiatric Genomics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2012, after having completed post-doctoral training at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and PhD studies at Harvard University. Dr. Brennand’s research combines expertise in genomic engineering, neuroscience, and stem cells, to identify the mechanisms that underlie brain disease. Her focus lies in resolving the convergence of, and complex interplay between, the many risk variants linked to disease, towards the goal of facilitating the clinical translation of genetic findings.  Dr. Brennand’s work is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the New York Stem Cell Foundation, the Brain Research Foundation, and the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.

Dr. Latimore is Yale School of Medicine’s first deputy dean for diversity and inclusion and its first chief diversity officer. He is devoted to increasing diversity within medical and academic spaces and to improving the climate of Yale School of Medicine’s learning and working environments. He is responsible for developing and implementing a comprehensive strategic plan for furthering diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at the school, which includes a focus on recruitment and retention of faculty and students from backgrounds that have been historically underrepresented in science and medicine.In his role, he has implemented a comprehensive program to improve faculty diversity and retention that focuses on policies, programs, and building community. He also oversees programs that support the outreach, recruitment, success, and retention of YSM students and postdoctoral fellows. He is co-chair of the YSM Program for Art in Public Spaces, which has commissioned new works of art featuring diverse YSM leaders and has hosted public exhibits that feature artwork by and about members of the YSM community.Dr. Latimore joined Yale in 2017 from the University of California, Davis School of Medicine, where he was associate dean for student and resident diversity. After obtaining his medical degree at University of California, Davis School of Medicine and completing his residency in internal medicine at University of California, Davis Medical Center, he worked as a physician specializing in HIV care with The Permanente Medical Group in South Sacramento, CA where he also trained medical students and residents. His transition to academic medicine began with his appointment as associate program director for the UC Davis internal medicine residency program followed by his appointment as the inaugural director of medical student diversity at UC Davis in 2008.

Anthony J. Koleske is an expert in understanding the biochemical mechanisms that regulate neuronal dendrite and synapse development. After receiving a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dr. Koleske performed his Ph.D. studies with Dr. Richard Young at the Whitehead Institute/Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For his Ph.D. thesis, Dr. Koleske discovered the RNA polymerase II holoenzyme, an important advancement in understanding how gene transcription is turned on. Dr. Koleske went on to do a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. David Baltimore at M.I.T., where he began his work studying cellular functions of Abl family kinases, which his laboratory has shown are essential regulators of the cytoskeleton in diverse cell types. Dr. Koleske joined the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University in 1998, where he currently is Professor and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Neuroscience. Dr. Koleske is the recipient of numerous awards including a Jane Coffin Childs Postdoctoral Fellowship, Special Fellowship and Scholar Awards from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Young Investigator and Established Investigator Awards from NARSAD, an Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association. He has served widely on review panels, including terms as Chair of the Basic Science Study Section for the American Heart Association and the Neurodifferentiation, Plasticity, Repair, and Rhythmicity Study Section of the NIH. He served as Director of the combined PhD programs in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Yale (2014-2019).  He also served Director of the China Scholarship Council-Yale World Scholars Program (2014-2019) and was a co-Director of the Yale BioMed SURF Amgen Scholars Program (w/Faye Rogers and Barbara Kazmierczak)(2015-2020).