Enock Teefe, MD, from the laboratory of Thomas Fernandez, MD, and co-mentored by Christopher Pittenger, MD, PhD, and José Jaime Martínez-Magaña, PhD, from the laboratory of Janitza Montalvo-Ortiz, PhD, have been selected to receive the 2023 Kavli Postdoctoral Award for Academic Diversity.
The Kavli Institute for Neuroscience at the Yale School of Medicine is committed to fostering and supporting an inclusive and representative neuroscience research community. The Kavli Postdoctoral Award for Academic Diversity aims to support exceptional scholars who bring a diversity of perspectives, identities, and backgrounds to academic research, including those from groups that are historically underrepresented in the sciences. This Award supports up to two years of mentored research in the neurosciences at Yale University, including salary, benefits, and a research allowance.
Enock Teefe
After receiving his M.D. from Rosalind Franklin University in Chicago in 2019, Teefe joined the Department of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine in 2020 as a resident in adult psychiatry. While completing his clinical training in Psychiatry and at the Child Study Center, Teefe is concurrently training at a PhD student in Investigative Medicine at the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. His primary career goal is to lead a translational neurogenetics research laboratory focused on neuropsychiatric disorders. Teefe’s proposed research project will focus on understanding the genetic risk of Tourette Syndrome by studying both common and rare DNA variants.
" My intellectual curiosity has led me to the exciting fields of neuroscience, genetics and psychiatry. As I continue to develop my professional identity, I hope to inspire and advocate for minoritized individuals like me to continue filling the ranks of translational scientific research in order to bring a much-needed diversity of ideas necessary for reducing the gaps in health inequities."
José Jaime Martínez-Magaña
Martínez-Magaña joined the Yale Department of Psychiatry in 2021 as a postdoctoral associate in the team of Janitza Montalvo-Ortiz. To better understand the etiology of complex traits and predict the genetic risk for some diseases, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are powerful tools. However, GWAS research mostly includes European populations, making the results less accurate for other populations. Martínez-Magaña’s proposed work will increase the representation of the Latin American population in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). His findings could help develop genetically-informed interventions for alcohol use disorders in this population.
"I plan to focus my research on using multi-omic approaches to develop novel treatments and biomarkers for substance use disorders in underrepresented populations, increasing diversity and assuring equity in health research."