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Gretchen Hermes, MD, PhD

Associate Professor of Psychiatry

Additional Titles

Medical Director, APT Foundation

Chief Psychiatrist, Yale Stress Center

Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship Coordinator, APT Foundation

About

Titles

Associate Professor of Psychiatry

Medical Director, APT Foundation; Chief Psychiatrist, Yale Stress Center; Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship Coordinator, APT Foundation

Biography

Gretchen Hermes completed her MD/PhD on pre-clinical stress-diathesis models of social neglect at the University of Chicago with Martha K. McClintock PhD, a pioneer in the field of social neuroscience. These developmental models of psychopathology (schizophrenia, depression) laid the foundation for her current research on co-morbid mental illness and addiction. Dr. Hermes entered the Yale Residency in the Neuroscience Research Training Program where she continued work with Ronald Duman PhD on preclinical models of social neglect and currently is engaged as a co-investigator at the Yale Stress Center working with Rajita Sinha, PhD, on research protocols related to effects of adrenergic receptor agonists on drug craving and withdrawal as well as large cohort studies on the long-ranging effects of early life trauma vs. acute stress. Dr. Hermes has ongoing collaborative research with the Section of Comparative Medicine and the Yale Depression Research Program on the role of mitochondrial proteins in facilitating synaptic neurotransmission, representing a potential paradigm shift toward a role for energy and biogenesis in mental illness.

While at the University of Chicago, Dr. Hermes completed post-doctoral work in infectious disease. This preclinical work on the memory and mood effects of ‘quiescent’ forms Toxoplasma gondii with Rima McLeod, MD, a world leading authority on Toxoplasmosis, paved the way for nearly a decade of service as the Behavioral Health Director and psychiatry attending at AIDS Project New Haven (APNH). While at APNH, through symposia, clinical rounds, and data collection, Dr. Hermes supported clinical efforts to address neurocognitive decline in members of the New Haven community living with HIV/AIDS.

Dr. Hermes established and co-teaches the Neurobiology of Addiction course for Psychiatry and Medicine Addiction fellows at Yale. She is the site director of the Addiction Psychiatry fellowship at the APT Foundation.

Prior to medical and research training, Dr. Hermes worked as a writer and multimedia producer at the Smithsonian Institution collaborating with Apple Computer, Lucas Film and Discovery Channel on the award winning interactive educational program on the discovery of DNA, Life Story, which Wired magazine identified as seminal in the development of multimedia. Dr. Hermes was a graduate student at Harvard Divinity School completing field work in northern Ethiopia on early syncretistic expressions of Christianity and Judaism in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church at Lalibela. In addition, Dr. Hermes has completed psychoanalytic training at the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis and maintains active interest in core psychoanalytic principles as they relate to addiction including trauma, attachment, and mourning; struggles with anxiety and embittered hope; the harshness of lost containers and lost thinking. She reflects often on ethical approaches to addiction treatment and on Dorothy Day’s theology of hospitality and human dignity.

Appointments

  • Psychiatry

    Associate Professor on Term
    Primary

Other Departments & Organizations

Education & Training

Research Fellowship, Schizophrenia
Yale University (2013)
Residency
Yale University (2011)
MD
University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine (2007)
Postdoctoral Fellowship, NIH, Interdisciplinary Program in Immunology
University of Chicago (2005)
PhD
University of Chicago (2003)
MA
Harvard Divinity School (1997)

Research

Research at a Glance

Yale Co-Authors

Frequent collaborators of Gretchen Hermes's published research.

Publications

2023

2022

2018

2016

2015

2012

Academic Achievements & Community Involvement

  • activity

    California Breast Cancer Research Program; University of California, Office of the President

  • activity

    Ad Hoc Reviewer

  • activity

    Female Opioid Research and Clinical Experts (FORCE)

  • honor

    NARSAD Young Investigator Grant

  • honor

    Workshop on Schizophrenia and Related Disorders, Travel Award and Stipend

Clinical Care

Overview

Clinical Specialties

Psychiatry; Addiction Medicine

Get In Touch

Contacts

Clinic Fax Number
Mailing Address

Psychiatry

2 Church St S

New Haven, CT 06519

United States

Locations

  • Horvath Lab

    Lab

    Brady Memorial Laboratory

    310 Cedar Street, Ste 416

    New Haven, CT 06510

  • Yale Stress Center

    Academic Office

    Doctors Building

    2 Church Street South, Fl 2nd, Ste 208, Rm 209

    New Haven, CT 06519

  • Patient Care Locations

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