School of Medicine
Showing 1-6 of 6 Results
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Ruth O'Hara
Director, Spectrum, Senior Associate Dean, Research and Lowell W. and Josephine Q. Berry Professor
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. O'Hara's research aims to investigate how cognitive information processing deficits subserve affective symptoms in psychiatric disorders, and interact with key brain networks integral to these disorders. To do so, she has implemented a translational, interdisciplinary program that encompasses cellular models, brain and behavioral assays of affective and cognitive information processing systems in psychiatric disorders across the lifespan.
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Alisa Marie Olmsted
Affiliate, Psych/Public Mental Health & Population Sciences
BioI am a board-certified psychiatrist specializing in interventional treatments for mood disorders, including transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), esketamine, and intravenous ketamine. I completed an Advanced MD Fellowship at the Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC), a Veterans Affairs (VA) Center of Excellence at VA Palo Alto, where my work focused on circuit-based approaches to precision psychiatry. I completed residency at Jefferson University Hospital, where I served as research chief and served on the ethics board, gaining broad clinical experience across inpatient, emergency, consultation-liaison, and addiction psychiatry. My research on Veterans has been published in Nature Mental Health and the Journal of Affective Disorders Reports, while my earlier clinical work was cited in The New York Times. I have provided continuous care to Veterans since medical school, including at the Hunter Holmes VA, where I earned honors, and at the Wilmington VA community-based outpatient clinic (CBOC). My commitment to serving Veterans is informed by a family legacy that includes multiple generations of combat Veterans, a perspective that continues to shape my clinical and research priorities within the VA system.
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Karen Osilla
Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Public Mental Health and Population Sciences)
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Osilla conducts health services research with a focus on supporting families impacted by substance use. Dr. Osilla has been conducting addictions research since 2006 and has been involved in clinical trials evaluating cognitive behavioral therapy, collaborative care, and motivational interviewing interventions (web and in-person) among youth, adult, military, family members, and other hard-to-reach populations.
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Michael Ostacher
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Public Mental Health and Population Sciences)
BioDr. Ostacher is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He is the Site Director for the Addiction Medicine Fellowship at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, where he also serves as the Medical Director of the Pharmacology of Addiction Recovery Clinic, the Director of the Bipolar and Depression Research Program and the Co-Director of the VA/Stanford Exploratory Therapeutics Lab, the Director of Advanced Fellowship Training in Mental Illness Research and Treatment for MDs for the VISN 21 MIRECC, and the Site Director at the VA Palo Alto for Advanced Fellowship Training for Stanford. A graduate of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, the Harvard School of Public Health, and Harvard Medical School, he completed his training at The Cambridge Health Alliance at Harvard Medical School in Adult Psychiatry, Public Psychiatry, and Geriatric Psychiatry, and is currently board certified in Psychiatry, Addiction Psychiatry, and Addiction Medicine. He is the Digital Content Editor for the journal Evidence-Based Mental Health and is on the editorial boards of Bipolar Disorders, the International Journal of Bipolar Disorders, the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, Current Psychiatry, and Psychiatric Annals. His current research includes roles as Site Investigator for VA-BRAVE, multicenter, randomized trial comparing long-acting injectable buprenorphine to sublingual buprenorphine/naloxone, and trials of psychedelic drugs in psychiatric disorders in Veterans. With funding from NIDA, he studied, along with Jaimee Heffner, Ph.D. at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, smoking cessation in people with bipolar disorder using a novel online psychotherapy derived from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. His primary research interest is in large clinical trials mental health and addiction, and the implementation of evidence-based mental health practices.
