Dr. Andreea O. Diaconescu is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology, University of Toronto. She is a cognitive and computational neuroscientist, with a particular interest in the mathematical modeling of maladaptive behavior and whole-brain dysconnectivity in psychiatric populations. She earned her Bachelor of Psychology with honors from York University in 2005 and her PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Toronto (2011). Then, she worked as a postdoctoral scientist in Zurich at the Translational Neuromodelling Unit (University of Zurich and ETH Zurich) and as a junior group leader in Basel at the University Psychiatric Hospital (University of Basel). Her interests include neurocomputational models of suicidality, neurocomputational models of psychosis, computational models of learning and decision-making, and hierarchical Bayesian modeling.
Tarek K. Rajji is a senior scientist and
chair of the Medical Advisory Committee at the Centre for Addiction and Mental
Health (CAMH). He is also a Canada Research Chair in neurostimulation for
cognitive disorders, a professor of psychiatry and director of the Geriatric
Psychiatry Division with the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of
Toronto, and the executive director of the Toronto Dementia Research Alliance
(TDRA). Tarek K. Rajji focuses on restoring brain function in older patients
with severe mental illness and Alzheimer’s disease. Towards this goal, he
combines brain stimulation, and cognitive, functional, and pharmacological
methods to study and enhance neuroplasticity across the lifespan with a special
focus on late life.
Dr. Daniel Felsky is an Assistant Professor at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, and the Head of Whole Person Modeling, at Krembil Centre for Neuroinformatics. He earned his BSc in Biological Sciences from the University of Guelph. He completed his PhD in neuroimaging and genetics of Alzheimer’s disease at CAMH in 2015. Following this, he completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Anne Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, in Boston, and the Centre for Translational and Computational Neuroimmunology at Columbia University Medical Centre in New York. He has experience across several areas including structural brain imaging, human genomics and transcriptomics, biostatistics, psychiatric epidemiology, and study design, and has published work on the genetic causes of Alzheimer’s disease, brain structural deficits in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, as well as the pharmacogenetics of antipsychotic treatment response.
Dr. Clement C. Zai is a staff scientist in Molecular Science at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). He is also an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. He received his PhD in Medical Science at the University of Toronto, examining genes for schizophrenia and tardive dyskinesia. He later received his MPH in Epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health. He studied the genetics of suicide on a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and a NARSAD Young Investigator Award from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation. He has been conducting several pharmacogenetic studies in patients with schizophrenia, with a particular focus on the tardive dyskinesia side effects induced by antipsychotic drugs.
Dr. James L. Kennedy is the Scientific
Director of the Molecular Science department and Head of the Tanenbaum Centre
for Pharmacogenetics at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). He
is also a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Institute of Medical
Science at the University of Toronto. James L. Kennedy’s research is dedicated
to finding genes involved in the cause of mental illness. He has published
pioneering findings relating gene variants in the dopamine, serotonin, and
neurodevelopment systems to psychiatric disorders and treatment responses.
James L. Kennedy has also led investigations using powerful DNA sequencing
technology to understand genetic variation and function in great detail.
Currently, he is applying molecular genetic technology to the study of
schizophrenia, obsessive–compulsive disorders, bipolar disorder, anxiety
disorders, eating disorders, addictions, personality disorders, and attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder. In addition, James L. Kennedy is investigating
genetic factors that may predict response and side effects to psychiatric
medications (pharmacogenetics). Another important area of interest is the
integration of molecular genetics and neuroimaging (MRI, PET) as a combination
approach to better understand brain structure and function.