Lead Investigators
Dr. Stefanie Berns is a clinical neuropsychologist with a long-standing interest in developing and evaluating rehabilitation methods to help patients with neurologic and psychiatric illness lead more independent lives. She received her doctoral degree in clinical neuropsychology from the City University of New York/Queens College and completed her internship at Mount Sinai in Rehabilitation Neuropsychology. She is the Assistant Director of the Center for Neuropsychiatric Outcome and Rehabilitation Research (CENORR) at Zucker Hillside Hospital-North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System.
The research she’s been involved with at CENORR, including her dissertation, has focused on exploring the precise relationships between particular kinds of neuropsychological deficits and particular areas of disability in life functioning among patients having psychiatric illnesses. This theoretical work (which continues) has begun to lay the groundwork for a systematic approach to developing novel interventions. She has taken the findings from these studies and integrated them with proven remediation techniques used in neurological populations to design new treatments for use with psychiatric populations. With support from NARSAD, Dr. Berns has developed and is in the process of evaluating the efficacy of “Electronically Assisted Neurorehabilitation” (EAN) which utilizes two-way pagers to improve treatment adherence in schizophrenia. She is also studying the validity of using Palm Pilots for self monitoring using daily life charts (including ratings of mood and functioning) in bipolar patients and is developing additional applications of this technology for use not only as a monitoring system, but also as an intervention for improving the independent functioning of psychiatric patients.
Katherine E. Burdick, PhD
Dr. Katherine E. Burdick received her undergraduate degree in Psychology at the University of Rochester and her Ph.D. in Neuropsychology at The Graduate Center-City University of New York. She did her clinical internship and postdoctoral work at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Burdick is currently the Director of the Neurocognitive Assessment Laboratory in the Department of Psychiatry Research at The Zucker Hillside Hospital of the North Shore-LIJ Health System and is an Assistant Professor at Albert Einstein School of Medicine and at CUNY-Queens College.
Dr. Burdick’s primary area of interest is in neurocognitive functioning in patients with bipolar disorder. She is a recent NARSAD Young Investigator awardee and is studying the familiality of neurocognitive deficits in bipolar disorder using a discordant sibling pair design. Dr. Burdick is also involved in a treatment trial, focused on pharmacological cognitive enhancement in patients with bipolar disorder, using the novel D2/D3 agonist pramipexole funded by the Stanley Medical Research Institute. Other current research interests include the potential influence of susceptibility genes on neurocognitive function in patients with schizophrenia, affective illnesses, and healthy individuals. 
Barbara A. Cornblatt, PhD, MBA
Dr. Barbara A. Cornblatt is a Professor of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Associate Director of the Department of Psychiatry Research, and Director of the Recognition and Prevention (RAP) Program. For more than 20 years, she has focused on research concerned with the causes and treatment of serious mental illness. She is currently concentrating on the identification and early treatment of adolescents who appear to be at risk for the development of serious psychiatry disorders, primarily schizophrenia and bipolar disorders.
The RAP program, which was opened in 1997, is one of the first programs in the United States specifically dedicated to the prevention of severe mental illness in young people. The program is supported by the National Institute of Mental Health and also receives funding from several private foundations. Close to 200 youngsters have participated in the program, which involves both research and early intervention. A high rate of clinical improvement is typical of many of the teenagers treated in the program. Dr. Cornblatt is also a cognitive scientist and has developed the computer-generated Continuous Performance Test - Identical Pairs (CPT-IP) version, often cited in the literature and currently being used in a large number of national and international projects. The latest version of the CPT-IP has been incorporated into the MATRICS neurocognitive battery, which will set the standard for industry in assessing effects of medication on cognition. Dr. Cornblatt has authored or co-authored over 150 scientific articles and book chapters and is currently the Director of the International Prodromal Research Network which sponsors international collaborations, workshops and prevention studies. She has received several awards, the most recent of which was from the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill (NAMI Queens/Nassau) for the achievements of the RAP research program.
Dr. Christoph U. Correll is a research psychiatrist at The Zucker Hillside Hospital, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York. He is director of the Adverse Events Assessment and Prevention Unit, The Zucker Hillside Hospital Advanced Center for Intervention and Services Research. He is also the Associate Medical Director of The Zucker Hillside Hospital Recognition and Prevention (RAP) Program, an NIMH-funded clinic focusing on the identification and early intervention of individuals at high risk for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. He graduated medical school from the Free University of Berlin, Germany, and Dundee University Medical School, Scotland, completing his general and child psychiatry residency at Hillside Hospital and Schneider Children's Hospital, New York.
Dr. Correll has expertise in the diagnosis and management of severe mental disorders in youth and adults. His areas of research include the early identification and treatment of mood disorders and schizophrenia, as well as the psychotic and the bipolar prodrome. In his research, he utilizes a wide range of clinical and basic science methods, including clinical trials psychopharmacology, pharmacogenetics, and molecular biology. His work further focuses on the utilization and risk-benefit evaluation of psychopharmacologic treatments, particularly second-generation antipsychotic drugs. Dr. Correll is the recipient of numerous research awards and author of scientific literature on the identification and treatment of individuals at high-risk for psychotic and mood disorders, the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and the assessment of psychotropic medications. Dr. Correll was a member of the ADA consensus development conference on antipsychotic drugs and obesity and diabetes, and is a current member of the APA workgroup on antipsychotics and metabolic side effects.
Dr. Terry Goldberg is Director of Research in Neurocognition at The Zucker Hillside Hospital’s Psychiatry Research Division. Prior to his current position, he directed a neurocogntive unit at the NIMH. He obtained his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Michigan. He is licensed to practice psychology in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.
He has longstanding interests in cognitive neuroscience, the cognitive impairments of schizophrenia, the impact of genetic variants on cognition, and the effects of drugs on cognition and has published widely on the neuropsychology of neuropsychiatric disorders. His work in characterizing cognitive impairments in schizophrenia, providing evidence of its validity, and demonstrating its relationship to level of function was critical in the development of neuropsychological approaches to schizophrenia and novel targets for drugs. Dr. Goldberg is a member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, the American Psychological Association, Biological Psychiatry, the International Neuropsychological Society, and the Society for Neuroscience and is on the editorial board of several scientific journals. He has published more than 150 scientific articles and chapters.
Dr. Judith Jaeger is a clinical neuropsychologist with a career-long interest in studying cognitive, affective and volitional impairments in psychiatric disorders. She is a graduate of the City University of New York (BA, MPA) and of Yeshiva University’s Ferkauf Graduate School (MA, PhD). Her early research was conducted at NYU School of Medicine and Brookhaven National Laboratory where she worked with team of researchers on some of the earliest functional brain imaging studies of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder using positron emission tomography and both F18-Fluorodeoxyglucose and C11-Deoxyglucose.
Continuing her affiliation with NYU, she then moved to Manhattan Psychiatric Center to work with Dr. Jan Volavka on studies examining risk factors (including neuropsychological) for violence among psychiatric inpatients and then to the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research. In 1989, Dr. Jaeger moved to Hillside Hospital and joined the faculty of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She holds joint academic appointments also at the CUNY Graduate Center and the Queens College doctoral program in Clinical Neuropsychology where she supervises doctoral dissertation research conducted in her laboratory, at The Zucker Hillside Hospital. She is also an Investigator at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research. Dr. Jaeger founded the Center for Neuropsychiatric Outcome and Rehabilitation Research (CENORR) within The Zucker Hillside Hospital's Department of Psychiatric Rehabilitation with the aim of studying the neurocognitive and affective correlates of functional disability in patients having disabling psychiatric disorders, and designing and testing new rehabilitation strategies. Guided by the work of Emil Kraepelin, Dr. Jaeger seeks to identify the essential illness features that distinguish naturally occurring diagnostic groups on the basis of longitudinal studies of cognition, affect and volition. This longitudinal perspective is, in her view, necessary for studies of clinical phenomenology, treatment effectiveness and disease genetics, as well as for appropriate service delivery. Her ongoing work involves longitudinal studies of schizophrenia, bipolar disorders and major depressive disorder, supported by NIMH, the Stanley Medical Research Foundation and NARSAD.
Dr. Vivian Kafantaris is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Director of Research in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry for the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System. She completed medical school and a general psychiatry residency at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She went to NYU/ Bellevue for child and adolescent psychiatry training and fellowship training in pediatric psychopharmacology research under the direction of Dr. Magda Campbell.
She is currently funded by the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct studies in the maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder in children and adolescents, ages 10 to 18 years.
Dr. John M. Kane is Vice President for Behavioral Health Services of the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System and Chairman of Psychiatry at The Zucker Hillside Hospital. He is Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology and Neuroscience and holds the Dr. E. Richard Feinberg Chair in Schizophrenia Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Dr. Kane received his B.A. from Cornell University and his M.D. from the New York University School of Medicine. He currently directs the NIMH-funded Intervention Research Center for the Study of Schizophrenia at The Zucker Hillside Hospital. He has been a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors for NIMH, and he has served on the council of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. He has chaired the NIMH Psychopathology and Psychobiology Review Committee as well as the Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee of the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Kane is a recipient of the Arthur P. Noyes Award in Schizophrenia, the NAPPH Presidential Award for Research, the American Psychiatric Association Foundations' Fund Prize for Research, the Kempf Fund Award for Research Development in Psychobiological Psychiatry, the Lieber Prize for Outstanding Research in Schizophrenia, the Heinz E. Lehmann Research Award from New York State, and the Dean Award from the American College of Psychiatrists.
Dr. Todd Lencz is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Assistant Investigator in the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research at NS-LIJHS, and Senior Psychologist at the Zucker Hillside Hospital (ZHH). He serves as Associate Director for the Recognition and Prevention (RAP) Program, as well as the Unit of Molecular Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry Research at ZHH. Dr. Lencz received his B.A. in Psychology (Magna cum Laude with Distinction in the Major) from Yale University and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Southern California, where he won the Distinguished Dissertation Award.
Dr. Lencz is the author or co-author of nearly 50 peer-reviewed scientific publications, focusing on three related research projects in the biology of schizophrenia and other serious mental illness:
Dr. Lencz is also the recipient of a Career Development Award from the National Institute of Mental Health, a Young Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders, and is the first awardee of the KeySpan Industries Medical Research Fellowship. Dr. Lencz is also co-editor of the book Schizotypal Personality, published by Cambridge University Press.
Dr. Anil Malhotra is the Director of Psychiatry Research at the Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, NY and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM) in the Bronx, NY. Dr. Malhotra completed his undergraduate studies at Cornell University in 1985 and received his M.D. from Wake Forest University in 1989. After residency training in psychiatry at Georgetown University, he completed a research fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Dr. Malhotra developed a research program in pharmacogenetics at the NIMH and was appointed the Chief of the Unit of Pharmacogenetics in the Experimental Therapeutics Branch in 1996. In 1998, Dr. Malhotra moved to the Zucker Hillside Hospital and AECOM to develop a molecular genetics program focused on the major neuropsychiatric disorders. Dr. Malhotra’s current research interests are on the role of molecular factors in human cognition and on the pharmacogenetics of antipsychotic drug response. He has conducted a series of studies implicating the glutamatergic N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor in neurocognition, as well as molecular studies identifying key candidate genes for specific aspects of human cognition. His work in pharmacogenetics has primarily focused on variation in the neurotransmitter receptor genes and their relationship to clinical response to the atypical antipsychotic agent, clozapine. Dr. Malhotra has published over 70 peer-reviewed papers in these areas as well as numerous review articles and book chapters. Dr. Malhotra receives grant support from the NIH, philanthropic foundations including the Stanley Foundation and the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders (NARSAD), and private industry.
Dr. Delbert Robinson is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. Dr. Robinson received his medical degree from the University of Tennessee followed by postgraduate training at Dartmouth, the University of Pittsburgh and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. His research efforts focus upon pharmacotherapy of early phase schizophrenia. Specific areas of interest include response of the initial episode, relapse prevention, treatment adherence and increasing the rate of recovery.
Dr. Robinson is a member of the Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee for the United States Food and Drug Administration. He has served on several work groups for the American Psychiatric Association on issues related to diagnosis, assessment and side effects.
Dr. Serge Sevy is a Research Psychiatrist at the Zucker Hillside Hospital (Glen Oaks, NY) and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He earned his medical degree at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium) in 1983. He completed a Residency in Neuro-Psychiatry at the Erasme University Hospital in Brussels (Belgium) (1983-1987) and a Residency in Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai Medical Center (NY) (1993-1997). He also completed a Research Fellowship in Biological Psychiatry and Psychopharmacology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Bronx, NY) (1987-1989). He has been working in the division of Psychiatry Research since 2000.
Dr. Sevy has a longstanding interest in schizophrenia. He has published several papers on its phenomenology (Kay and Sevy, 1990; Sevy et al, 2001; Sevy et al, 2005), and treatment (Sevy et al, 2001; Sevy et al, 2004; Sevy et al, 2005). The focus of his present research is the elucidation of the biological mechanisms underlying addictive behaviors in schizophrenia. He has co-authored over 30 peer-reviewed papers as well as several reviews and book chapters. Currently, he has grant support from the National Institute of Health.
Dr. Ratna Sircar is the Director of the Laboratory for Biobehavioral Psychopharmacology at the Zucker Hillside Hospital, and an Associate Investigator at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, North Shore-Long Island Jewish Hospital. She is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Associate Professor of Neurology and Assistant Professor of Pathology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY. She was the Director of the Developmental Neuroscience Program in the Department of Psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine from 1992-2004.
Dr. Sircar was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Pharmacology, Columbia University and the Department of Psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She received her M.Sc. (Physiology) and Ph.D. degrees from the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India. Dr. Sircar is a member of several scientific organizations including Society for Neuroscience, College on Problems of Drug Dependence, Neurobehavioral Teratology, International Society for Developmental Neuroscience.
Dr. Gwenn Smith is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Senior Research Scientist at the Zucker Hillside Hospital of the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System. She completed her undergraduate training in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and her graduate training in neuropsychology at the City University of New York.
Dr. Smith completed post-doctoral training in neuroimaging of neurodegenerative disease at the Aging and Dementia Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, New York University (NYU) School of Medicine and then, she joined the Schizophrenia Research Program at NYU. While a faculty member at NYU, she also served as a research collaborator in the Positron Emission Tomography Program, Brookhaven National Laboratory. Her training and research at NYU and Brookhaven focused on the integration of structural and functional neuroimaging methods to evaluate mechanisms of neurodegeneration and the development of methods to evaluate dopamine and acetylcholine modulation by other neurotransmitter systems in vivo. Dr. Smith moved to the University of Pittsburgh in 1995, where she served as Principal Investigator of the Functional Brain Imaging Core for the Intervention Research Center in Late Life Mood Disorders (Charles F. Reynolds, III, M.D., PI) and as Associate Director of the NIMH training grant “Clinical Research Training in Late-Life Mood Disorders” (Charles F. Reynolds, III, MD, PI). There, she focused on the initial clinical applications of the PET methods for measuring dopamine modulation in vivo in schizophrenia and AD. She moved to the Zucker Hillside Hospital and Center for Neurosciences in 1999. There, she has focused on methodology development to evaluate serotonergic function and regulation by other neurotransmitters in schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s Disease and geriatric depression and to develop methods to evaluating interactions between the HPA axis and monoamines systems. Dr. Smith serves currently as a co-director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Unit of the Advances Center for Intervention and Services Research in Schizophrenia and as Assistant Program Director (Psychiatry) of the General Clinical Research Center. She is a faculty member of the Advanced Research Institute (ARI; Dr. Martha Bruce, PI) in Geriatric Mental Health. Since 1998, Dr. Smith has been supported by an Independent Scientist Award (K02) entitled “Monoaminergic Function in Geriatric Neuropsychiatry” from the National Institute of Mental Health since 1998. She is a member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP), of the Collegium Internationale Neuropsychopharmacologicum (CINP) and a founding member of the International College of Geriatric Psychoneuropharmacology (ICGP).
Dr. Philip Szeszko received his Bachelor of Science in Psychology with Honors from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He completed his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from St John’s University and his clinical internship at the Rusk Institute at New York University. He received a predoctoral fellowship from the Scottish Rite Foundation to work on his doctoral dissertation for a year at the Zucker Hillside Hospital at the North Shore – Long Island Jewish Medical Center and subsequently completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in the neurosciences at that same institution. He is currently the Associate Director of the Psychiatry Research Department at the Zucker Hillside Hospital and serves as the Co-Director of the Cognition and Neuroimaging Assessment Unit for the Department’s Advanced Center for Intervention and Services Research in Schizophrenia. Dr. Szeszko is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Dr. Szeszko’s research focuses on the use of magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion tensor imaging to characterize brain structural abnormalities in neuropsychiatric disorders including schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder and how these abnormalities are associated with functional indices. He is also examining whether the use of brain imaging measures can help predict treatment response and outcome in individuals with schizophrenia. Dr. Szeszko has also published in the area of olfaction and psychiatric illness. Dr. Szeszko is the recipient of a Mentored Research Scientist Development Award from the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) that focuses on the use of brain imaging to better understand the pathophysiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder. He also received his second Young Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorder (NARSAD) – in this work he is examining whether genetic variability is associated with brain structure and function in individuals with neuropsychiatric disorders and healthy volunteers.
|
