People

Human geneticist with a focus on biological psychiatry, human evolution, statistical genetics, and computational biology.

Dr.Pathak is a postdoctoral associate in Dr. Renato Polimanti’s group working with psychiatric genetics. She recently received K99/R00, Alzheimer's Association Research Fellowship, and the ADRC scholar award to focus on her long-term research interest of understanding genetics underlying Alzheimer's disease and psychiatric traits. In her postdoctoral work, she focused on system genetics of polysubstance abuse, cardiac amyloidosis, and mood disorders among other complex traits. She was the lead analyst for the investigation on Genomics of Gulf War Illness (GWI) under the Million Veteran Program (MVP), which houses genotype and clinical data on more than 650,000 veterans (under review). Dr.Pathak developed a high resolution multi-ethnic genome reference panel for the diverse MVP cohort to improve genetic ancestry identification of ethnic minorities (Wendt et. al 2022, Human Genomics). She is also one of the leading analysts for the Psychiatric Genomic Consortium – Major Depression Working Group wherein she integrated three-dimensional chromatin conformation to prioritize genetic variants associated with depression in 3.5 million individuals (World Congress of Psychiatric Genetics 2022). She initiated and performed analyses for the multi-institutional collaborative project with COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative (HGI) to study regulatory effects of COVID-19 risk loci (Nature Communications). Within HGI, she performed phenome-wide association study for the variants identified in their data freeze 5 and led a team of four scientists. She is the first author for the data freeze 6 manuscript which identified ACE2 locus (Nature). So far in her postdoctoral training, she has published eight papers as first author, and 38 papers as co-author. Her skills involve Bayesian statistics, GWAS, epigenomics, fine-mapping, functional annotation, transcriptomics and admixture mapping. She joined Yale after completing her doctoral studies at University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, Texas. Her graduate work on understanding disrupted genetic variants underlying health effects earned her numerous awards as a graduate student. She was selected as a pre-doctoral fellow for the NIH-T32 Neurobiology of Aging (2017-18), Health Science Innovation Award at Annual NBA Symposium (2018), Texas Higher Education Grant, Outstanding Graduate Student in Genetics (2018-19), and was a pre-finalist for the MiHero predoctoral fellowship. She received full scholarship to attend the 23rd Statistical Genetics Summer Institute at University of Washington, Seattle. She served as the communications member and then as a coordinator for the Yale Postdoctoral Association. She also mentored PhD students through the Women in Science at Yale initiative.

Clinician-scientist, broadly interested in developing approaches for biologically informed diagnosis, subtyping, prognostication, and treatment selection for the mental health field. Human subjects genetic epidemiology, genome-wide expression and association studies. Epidemiological studies of using electronic health records to characterize treatment practices and emulate clinical trials. Application of machine-learning and language processing tools to electronic health records in order to yield phenotypic data for research ResearchGate Profile

Born and raised in Georgia, Dr. Makharashvili has earned her medical degree from David Tvildiani Medical University and trained in pediatric emergency medicine, after which, her career shifted from clinical medicine into academia and research. Passionate about understanding human behavior, she is interested in researching addiction psychology, neurodevelopmental psychology, and emotion regulation in children. She is also very enthusiastic about mentoring, enjoys working with students, and has five years of higher education teaching experience. Dr. Makharashvili currently works as a research associate in Dr. Polimanti's lab and is mainly involved with human-subject research, focusing on substance use disorders. Ana is also leading a collaborative study in Georgia, investigating effects of parenting styles on various mental health outcomes in children. Ana is currently pursuing her degree in Masters of Clinical Mental Health Counseling and is a clinical consultant at Southern Connecticut Behavioral Health.

Dr. Cabrera-Mendoza joined Dr. Renato Polimanti's group in 2021. She completed her MD and PhD in the National Autonomous University of Mexico as part of the Plan of Combined Studies in Medicine (PECEM by its acronym in Spanish). During her PhD, she investigated genomic alterations associated with suicidal behavior. Her research focus on genetic and epigenetic changes associated with suicidal behavior and substance use disorders.

A dedicated, positive, and hardworking person eager to learn, lead, and collaborate. I earned a Honors Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience and Behavior and a minor in Psychology from the University of New Hampshire (UNH) in May 2022. During my undergraduate education I worked as a research assistant and undergraduate researcher in the Personality Laboratory at UNH where I assisted on, and conducted, multiple research projects, taught other research assistants valuable data manipulation and cleaning practices, and presented at university, national, and international research conferences. I am currently a Postgraduate Associate in the Polimanti Lab in the Yale School of Medicine’s Division of Human Genetics within the Psychiatry Department where I support research into the genetic underpinnings of addiction-related traits, their comorbidities, and COVID-19. My interests include the psychology of personality, motivation, and decision-making, especially as it relates to interpersonal relationships.

Dr. Friligkou is a post-doctoral research associate in psychiatric genetics, working in Dr. Polimanti's lab. She mainly focuses on the genetic structures shared by different psychiatric pathologies and the genetic mechanisms that foster heterogeneity within specific disorders. Using a range of computational tools, she examines large volumes of genomic data, electronic health records, and other patient-related information to find answers to these questions. After graduating from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki with a Medical Degree, Dr. Friligkou worked as a rural doctor and psychiatry intern at Leros General Hospital for two years. She later obtained an MSc in Health Data Analysis from the same university. She intends to pursue a Psychiatry Residency in the United States to further her interests in clinical practice and research.

Hector L. Morales, Sr., MPH, received both his Bachelors and Masters Degree in Public Health from American Military University in 2018 and 2020, respectively. He is currently a doctoral candidate while working in clinical research at The Yale School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry. His Public Health experience includes consulting, research, and other Public Health settings, including an ambulatory and surgical center background. In his leisure time, he enjoys spending time with his son, traveling, and training in Martial Arts.