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Usha Iyer

Associate Professor of Art and Art History

Current Research and Scholarly InterestsFilm studies, South Asia, Caribbean, Gender, Diaspora, Race and ethnicity

BioSarah was born and raised in Brazil where she attended law school before moving to the United States and shifting her interest to Neuroscience. She completed majors in Biology and Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in 2020. At VCU, Sarah was part of the NIH-IMSD program and worked on uncovering mechanisms of axonal pathology in the lab of Dr. Jeff Dupree. She also worked with a clinical sample to identify the effects of income insecurity on decision-making in people with cocaine use disorder (CUD), in the lab of Dr. James Bjork. After graduating, Sarah went to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a UGSP Research Fellow and characterized a progranulin knockout mouse model in the lab of Dr. Alan Koretsky. She returned to her clinical research work in her second year at NIH in the lab of Dr. Vijay Ramchandani, where she worked to understand the relationship between neurological domains underlying Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD). At Stanford, Sarah is interested in treating and managing neuropsychiatric disorders and increasing access to participation in clinical research studies. Sarah is a RAISE fellow, a NIDA START Fellow, and an intern project manager for the Recovery Incentives Program.