Neuroscience Research Training Program (NRTP)

Kaustubh Kulkarni is a psychiatry resident in the Neuroscience Research Training Program (NRTP). He earned his bachelor's in Neuroscience, with minors in Computer Science and Philosophy, from Rutgers University. He then completed his MD and PhD in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Broadly, Kaustubh is interested in how disruptions in brain architecture drive psychiatric disorders through changes in cognitive and affective processing. His research aims to utilize computational and statistical modeling, in combination with brain imaging, to infer aberrent mental processes underlying psychiatric dysfunction, with a focus on identifying diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets for addictive disorders. Kaustubh is interested in interventional treatment modalities, including transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), low-intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU), and ketamine-based therapies to treat refractory psychiatric illness. Additionally, he is committed to evidence-based psychotherapy, with a particular interest in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). At Yale, he aims to continue bridging basic neuroscience and clinical psychiatry to inform novel, personalized interventions for complex mental illness.

Edna Normand, MD, PhD is a resident physician at the Yale Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience Research Training Program (NRTP). She works to bridge the gap between medicine, science, and society. Dr. Normand completed her PhD at Princeton University and her MD at Rutgers RWJ, as part of the joint MD/PhD program at RWJ-Princeton. Using tools such as machine learning, whole-brain connectomics, and optogenetics, she mapped sexually dimorphic brain circuits in flies and studied how audiovisual signals are transformed into real-time motor responses during natural social interactions. Her dissertation sits at the intersection of circuits and systems neuroscience, computational neuroscience, and neuroethology, with a focus on multisensory signal processing. Her work was funded by an NIH F30 grant and presented at national and international conferences. She has been recognized by awards such as Merck’s Top 10 Global Innovator and the NIH BRAIN Initiative highlight award. Prior to her MD/PhD training, she earned dual bachelor’s degrees in neurobiology and media studies on a full merit scholarship at the Macaulay Honors College (CUNY-Hunter). In addition to her medical training and scientific background, Dr. Normand has worked for over 15 years across a spectrum of award-winning service and leadership roles, including during public emergencies such as Hurricane Sandy. Born in New York City, she is a first generation college graduate. Through formative encounters with her underserved immigrant community's experiences with mental illness and language/cultural barriers, she developed early interests in public psychiatry and science that could improve the lives of chronically ill patients. Throughout her MD/PhD training, she worked at a free clinic for uninsured patients for nine years. At Yale, she is interested in building an interdisciplinary research program involving psychotic disorders, brain-body intersections, and neuromodulation (TMS, VNS, and ultrasound), drawing on her expertise in neural circuits and signal processing. She is also interested in providing integrated care for patients with complex neuropsychiatric and medical needs (including functional disorders). Dr. Normand is committed to serving the New Haven community and aims to provide outstanding and compassionate care to her patients, including those who have limited access to care, while advancing science toward future treatments.

Kristina Wilbekin Walker, MD, PhD, is excited to be joining the Yale Neuroscience Research Training Program. She received her bachelors degree in Psychology from Spelman College, and went on to complete the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Kristina worked with Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo on her thesis in Epidemiology, that focused on considerations for implementation of multipurpose prevention technologies (MPT’s), novel modalities that combine contraceptives and STI/HIV prevention using a mixed methods approach. This work was supported by an F-31 Diversity Award through the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. She is interested in utilizing the skill sets developed to better understand the mental health needs of individuals with dual diagnosis. She is also passionate about health equity and women’s mental health.

Samuel Dienel (Sam), MD, PhD, is a psychiatry resident in Yale’s Neuroscience Research Training Program. He completed his bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh, with minors in Chemistry and Applied Statistics. After completing his undergraduate training, he began working as a Research Assistant in the lab of Dr. David Lewis, working with the Brain Tissue Donation Program. He then matriculated to Pitt’s Medical Scientist Training Program, where he continued his work in Dr. Lewis’ lab. His thesis focused on the postmortem alterations to a group of cortical inhibitory neurons called somatostatin neurons in people with schizophrenia, using novel approaches to label target transcripts in sections of the postmortem human prefrontal cortex. Going forward at Yale, he hopes to apply his training in molecular neuroscience to address questions about the developmental patterning of prefrontal cortical circuits and how alterations in those developmental trajectories can give rise to psychiatric disorders with impaired cognitive function, such as schizophrenia and autism.

I completed my medical training at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece at the height of the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. Fascinated by transcultural psychiatry, I spent two years as a resident and rural doctor serving on the Greek island of Leros and the island's refugee reception center. The clinical practice sparked my interest in how healthcare information can be employed to refine psychiatric phenotypes, so I pursued a Master’s in Health Data Analysis at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where I delved into psychiatric genetics. During my post-doctoral fellowship at Yale, I used electronic health records, wearable device data, and multi-omic information to understand the underlying causes of anxiety disorders in diverse populations and to explore the shared and distinct genetic factors across various psychiatric conditions. As a resident in the Yale Neuroscience Research Track, I will focus on using multidimensional patient-related information to improve clinical prediction, emphasizing enhancing representation in healthcare data.

Yasna Rostam Abadi, MD, MPH, is a Yale Psychiatry resident in the Neuroscience Research Training Program. She received her MD-MPH from Tehran University of Medical Sciences, where she was recognized with the Avicenna Awards for Excellence in Education, Health Care Quality Improvement, and Social Activism. During medical school, she served as Chair and Head of the Central Council of the Students’ Scientific Research Center. She also conducted research at the Iranian National Center for Addiction Studies, a WHO Collaborating Center, focusing on the epidemiology of substance use and its health consequences in Iran and the Eastern Mediterranean region. Following graduation, Dr. Rostam Abadi completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, working on three NIH-funded multi-center clinical trials aimed at improving addiction treatment in primary care and hospital settings. Her work has been published in The Lancet Psychiatry, The Lancet Global Health, JAMA Internal Medicine, and Addiction. At Yale, her current research interests focus on using electronic health records, unstructured notes, and spoken narrative responses to identify clinical and behavioral patterns underlying mental illness.

I am interested in neural control of innate behavioral drives, with a focus on acute hunger, satiety, and energy homeostasis. Clinically, this pertains most directly to eating disorders, and more broadly to aberrant reward perception and ultimately entrenchment of counter-survival behaviors. My interest stemmed from a background as a track athlete and later an amateur physique athlete. Come and lift heavy with me in the gym! I came to the U.S. from China at the age of 18 to pursue my undergraduate education. I got my first biomedical research experience at Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute, where I studied retina development and degeneration in Dr. Valeria Canto-Soler’s lab. After college, I spent two years in Durban, South Africa and conducted research on bacterial molecular genetics and DNA topology. I lived in a hostel and shared happiness and sorrow with vibrant local university students, hardworking Zulu women who came into the city for better job opportunities, and an adorable landlord gentleman of Dutch descent. I then returned to the U.S. for the MD PhD training. I completed my PhD in Dr. Scott Sternson’s lab at HHMI Janelia Research Campus. We were interested in coding of need states and need-fulfilling processes by subregions of the hypothalamus. My colleague Dr. Shengjin Xu and I developed a new research platform that allowed all the sufficiently refined cell types and all behaviors of interest to be studied in the same animal. We were thereby able to make discoveries unattainable by previously existing methods. At Yale, I have joined Dr. Ruslan Medzhitov’s lab. My project focuses on the gut-brain sensing of essential nutrients that we humans do not seem to report specific “craving” for. The imbalance and rebalance of these nutrients track the trajectory of anorexia illness and recovery. I am passionate about connecting this work to clinical care and making eating disorder care at all acuity levels more accessible to patients of all ages and background.

As an undergraduate at Columbia University, I majored in Biomedical Engineering. My formative experience working in the Biomaterials and Interface Tissue Engineering Lab paired with my passion to help patients motivated me to become a physician-scientist. I joined the MD/PhD program at Columbia’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed my thesis work in Dr. Kam Leong’s lab onhow dual-purpose nanomaterials that can deliver chemotherapy and bind to inflammatory damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) thereby mitigating the metastatic spread of breast cancer. My research was funded by an NIH F31 Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award in April 2021. As my desire to become a psychiatrist grew, I developed a novel research plan to test the influence of DAMP-scavenging nanoparticles on chemobrain side effects, particularly anxiety. My thesis work was awarded the Miriam Berkman Spotnitz Award in Oncology at Columbia’s medical school graduation in 2023. Going forward, I would like to conduct clinical research aimed at better understanding or improving treatments of women’s mental health and it’s incredible to have the opportunity to pursue this research at Yale.

Henry Kietzman, MD, PhD, is a resident in Yale’s Neuroscience Research Training Program. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Swarthmore College with a B.A. in Neuroscience. He then enrolled in the Medical Scientist Training Program at Emory University. During medical school, he organized a resilience initiative to promote social connection and decrease burnout among medical students. He then transitioned to his dissertation work in the lab of Dr. Shannon Gourley, where he performed circuit-level analyses to understand how connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala allow social experiences to shape behavior in rodents. At Yale, he aims to continue using rodent models to understand the neural building blocks of social cognition, while developing new pharmacological and psychological interventions for those with mental illness focused on improving social connectedness. This dovetails with a vested interest in understanding new patient-centered treatments to decrease mental illness burden in LGBTQ+ individuals.

Songjun William (Will) Li, MD, PhD, is a psychiatry resident in Yale’s Neuroscience Research Training Program. He graduated from Emory University with a bachelors degree double majoring in music performance as well as neuroscience and behavioral biology. There, he studied the neurobiological basis of relational memory formation in the Rhesus macaque model under the guidance of Dr. Beth Buffalo. After college, he joined Dr. Leslie Ungerleider’s lab at the NIMH to investigate facial processing using as a post-bacc fellow. Will then moved to Boston, where he continued his studies at the Boston University School of Medicine, and completed his PhD dissertation with Dr. Ziv Williams at Mass General Hospital evaluating single-neuronal responses during complex social decision making in mice. His research has, thus far, revealed a putative executive mechanism in the prefrontal cortical network that allows animals to evaluate social information about others that can adaptively influence pro-social decisions, competitive effort, and sociability. Will's current research interests aim to build upon our understanding of how the brain processes and encodes socially motivated behaviors, uncovering the mechanisms that go awry in psychosocial disorders using rodent models, and exploring novel treatment options – such as neuromodulation and psychedelics – to restore behavioral function. He is also interested in optimizing digital tools and wearable technologies to detect and track psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety, OCD, and PTSD.

As an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I majored in Chemistry and minored in Biology and Political Science. At MIT, I worked in Ed Boyden’s lab and used optogenetics approaches to silence epileptic seizures. I then joined the MD/PhD program at NYU, completing my thesis in Gord Fishell’s lab using single-cell genomics and lineage tracing approaches to study cortical interneuron development. Going forward, I hope to apply basic neuroscience research tools to better understand and treat neuropsychiatric illnesses. I am particularly interested in disorders with a developmental origin, including autism and schizophrenia. I am very excited to join the NRTP at Yale for residency, where I plan to continue my research on fetal brain development.

Daniel (Dan) F. Camacho, MD, PhD, is a Yale Psychiatry resident in the Neuroscience Research Training Program. He attended the University of Michigan, where he received a BS in Chemistry, with distinction, and an MS in Biomedical Engineering. He earned his MD and PhD degrees from the University of Chicago’s Medical Scientist Training Program with a specialization in immunology.  Dan’s professional interests include patient care, research, science communication, and science outreach. His previous research has advanced our understanding of how allergic responses are triggered and how communication between cells of the body can allow cancer cells to grow unchecked. His current research aims to help us understand how interactions between immune cells and the nervous system contribute to mental health and psychiatric illness.

Joe Luchsinger, MD, PhD, is a resident in Yale’s Neuroscience Research Training Program. He completed a BS in neuroscience and psychology and BA in physics at Baldwin Wallace University. During that time, he worked in the Mickley lab studying PTSD and unofficially broke the world record for the world’s longest handshake.  Joe then moved to Vanderbilt University for his MD-PhD. While there, he was the president of his medical school class and the medical school wine club. Towards the end of medical school, his peers elected him into the honor society Alpha Omega Alpha. He also spent much time on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, and locally advocating for increased federal investment in biomedical research.  He completed his PhD in the Winder, where he had an NIH fellowship to use preclinical models to study the neurobiology of stress and its relationship to addiction. He aims to continue to use preclinical models to better our understanding of psychiatric illness and improve its treatment.

Julio C. Nunes, MD is a research-track Psychiatry Resident at Yale University and Chief Resident of Outpatient and Addiction Services at the West Haven VA. His work focuses on addiction, chronic pain, and health disparities, with an emphasis on translating research into patient-centered policy, advocacy, and practice. He is a Laughlin Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists and a Leadership Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. As a member of Yale’s Pain and Addiction Interaction Neurosciences (PAIN) Laboratory and a former research fellow at the Stanford Center for Clinical Research, Dr. Nunes has authored more than 40 peer-reviewed publications, chapters, and commentaries. His scholarship has been recognized by the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry, the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the American Society of Hispanic Psychiatry. Nunes also serves on the board of Doctors for Drug Policy Reform and recently partnered with U.S. Senator Edward Markey’s office on the dissemination of the Modernizing Opioid Treatment Access Act, legislation aimed at expanding access to methadone through community pharmacies. Education is another core commitment. Dr. Nunes is a recurrent lecturer at the Yale School of Medicine, has led national workshops on addiction and chronic pain, and received Yale Psychiatry’s Resident Teaching Award as a PGY-1. Originally from Brazil and Mexico, he brings a global perspective to questions of access and equity in mental health and addiction treatment. Across his clinical work, research, teaching, and advocacy, his goal is to make addiction care more equitable, compassionate, and accessible.