Professor Mustafa M. Husain, M.D., will end his faculty appointment on June 15 after three decades at UT Southwestern. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Husain on his many achievements as we wish him well on his retirement.

Over his career, Dr. Husain has served as principal investigator for major national collaborative, NIH-sponsored investigations to advance ECT strategies including the CORE Trial, Three Lead Placement (3LP) Study, and the PRIDE Trial. He also has led NIH-funded, multicenter, multinational, highly significant studies, including the Confirmatory Efficacy and Safety Trial of Magnetic Seizure Therapy for Depression (CREST-MST), as well as the PD- Depression from NIA and New Neuromodulation and Neuroimaging grants from Brain initiative, among many others.

Dr. Husain has assisted in developing and implementing mentoring plans for early career faculty and preparing responses to grant reviewer critiques on K-Award applications as part of our department’s Clinical Research in Progress program. He has also served as a grant reviewer nationally for the NIH, NIA, and NIMH and for the Brain Canada Mental Health Research Program, among many other roles for professional societies and journals.

He has mentored more than 25 junior faculty, several of whom have gone on to excel in their research and clinical work, such as Dr. Shawn McClintock and Dr. Paul Croarkin, who have received federal funding and built their own careers in neuromodulation.

He has also led teams of UT Southwestern researchers in work that is reshaping clinical practices in TMS, VNS, DBS, and MST brain stimulation techniques by helping to provide safe alternatives for the treatment of severe depression and bipolar disorder. He was the founding Director of the Neuromodulation Research and Therapeutic Program and has assisted our clinical leadership in streamlining the ECT program, encouraging and involving junior faculty in ECT research and helping our Interventional Psychiatry service become a highly recognized program nationally.  

Dr. Husain has had a long and distinguished career as a translational researcher and educator in brain stimulation therapies for severe affective disorders. We are thankful for his dedication to our department and his influence in our field.

Professor Robert W. Greene, M.D., Ph.D., will end his faculty appointment on May 31 after nearly 24 years at UT Southwestern.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Robby Greene on his upcoming retirement after an illustrious career at UT Southwestern.

Dr. Greene is an international leader in sleep research. His work has focused on the molecular and synaptic functions of sleep. His research articles have accumulated more than 14,000 citations, and he has contributed invited editorials for PNAS, Sleep, Biological Psychiatry, Neuropsychopharmacology, and Journal of Clinical Investigation. He has served as a member and then as Chair of the sleep-focused NIH study section, Brain Rhythms and Sleep, with additional service on numerous ad hoc special emphasis panels and program project review panels. He has received external funding awards continuously from the NIH and Department of Veterans Affairs and a T32 training award for training of graduate and undergraduates that he co-directed with Dr. Joseph Takahashi. Dr. Greene has served on several Society for Neuroscience committees and as a member of the Program Committee for both the Sleep Research Society and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

As a colleague, he has sustained an outstanding reputation for collegiality and professionalism as a researcher and an investigator in the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute, with significant contributions to mentorship, didactic graduate teaching, and seminar participation.

His many achievements have not only advanced the science of sleep but greatly enhanced the reputation of our department and our institution. We are thankful for his service and wish him well on the next stage of his life.

NEW! Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program Incoming Class of 2029

We are thrilled to announce the incoming class of 2025, who will be joining us this August!

A special thank you to the Admissions Committee, chaired by Laura Lacritz, Ph.D., and co-chaired by Aleksandra Foxwell, Ph.D., for their dedication and hard work.

Please join us in extending a warm welcome to our new students.

Leadership Positions Posted

We have several application opportunities available for leadership positions in our department--

Division Chiefs:

• Addiction Psychiatry
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Geriatric Psychiatry

Staff Roles:

• Manager of Marketing and Communications
• Research Programs Manager
• Senior Grants and Contracts Specialist, Translational Neuroscience
• Supervisor of Clinical Research

Please consider applying or sharing the application links with people you know who may be interested to join us!

CPAN Celebrating 5th Anniversary

May is recognized as Maternal Mental Health Month, a time to raise awareness, reduce stigma, and support the mental health needs of mothers and families everywhere. It is also a milestone month for the Child Psychiatry Access Network, as CPAN is celebrating its 5th anniversary! This month is a great opportunity to share resources, elevate awareness in our networks, and reflect on the importance of the work we do every day.

Eric Nestler, M.D., Ph.D., Elected to National Academy of Sciences

Former Chair of the UT Southwestern Department of Psychiatry, Eric Nestler, M.D., Ph.D., has been highly honored with election to the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Nestler, a pre-eminent researcher studying the biological basis of addiction and depression, led our department until 2008. The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit institution that recognizes achievement in science by election to membership and advises the federal government and other organizations on matters of science, engineering, and health policy. We are pleased to celebrate this highly deserved recognition and the advances in translation brain science that Dr. Nestler has achieved. 

NEW! Kaltra Dhima, Ph.D., ABPP, a Boston native, earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at UT Southwestern. She subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Clinical Neuropsychology at Cleveland Clinic.

Starting in 2020, Dr. Dhima served as Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, working primarily with patients with movement disorders, clinically and in research. She is thrilled to return to UT Southwestern as a faculty member. 

NEW! Sam Baker of KERA News (NPR for North Texas) interviewed Maria Chahrour, Ph.D., regarding her research into the role of genetics in autism. 

Listen to the Audio / Read the Transcript

NEW! NAMIWalks North Texas 2025 Walk of Fame

NAMI North Texas honored our Psychiatry Team Confabulous for "energy, heart, and hustle" in its annual walk to raise funds and awareness for individuals and families in the community to access free mental health education, support groups, and other needed resources. Team Confabulous can continue gaining support until May 31. Please finalize any pending donations before then.

NEW! Pam Blumenthal Community Service Award

The Suicide Prevention & Resilience in Children (SPARC) team, including Mehak Gupta, Jessica Heerschap, Ph.D., and Betsy Kennard, Psy.D., has been selected to receive the Dallas Psychological Association's Pam Blumenthal Community Service Award for adapting the SPARC intensive outpatient program to the child and adolescent outpatient clinics at Metrocare.

The award will be presented at the Dallas Psychological Association's Spring Awards Banquet at MesoMaya on June 1 (register to attend by Friday, May 23).

NEW! Golden Heart Award

Jessica Churchwell, LCSW, was honored for clinical excellence in service to patients at the Richardson Clinic.

2025 Cary Council DocStars Grant

Jeffrey Schaffert, Ph.D., was selected for funding for the 2025 DocStars Award by the Cary Council for the research study “IMaging, PlasmA, and Cognitive Trajectories in amateur FOOTBALL players (IMPACT-FOOTBALL).”

OBI Sprouts Grant Award

The O’Donnell Brain Institute Sprouts Grants support trainees taking an independent role in formulating and investigating a new research question relevant to their ongoing study. Ruining (Rae) Hu, M.S., Neuroscience Graduate Student, Choi Lab, was awarded a grant for “Elucidating the Circuit Mechanisms for Somatosensory Regulation of Sleep.”

APA Poster Honor

The American Psychiatric Association's New Research Press Briefing selected a poster co-authored by resident Jasmine Liu-Zarzuela, M.D., M.P.H., reporting on research about music and mental health, for presentation and a news release at the APA's Annual Meeting.

Associate Editor for AJP Residents' Journal

The American Journal of Psychiatry Residents' Journal has selected Dhruba Banerjee, M.D., as an Associate Editor.

ISEN Travel Scholarship Recipient

Psychiatry resident Donald Egan, M.D., was awarded a travel scholarship to attend the International Society of ECT and Neuromodulation Annual Meeting.

Award Honors Faculty Member

The University of Toronto newly announced the Toronto Dementia Research Alliance Tarek K. Rajji Award in Brain Stimulation Research. This award will honor a University of Toronto trainee conducting basic, pre-clinical, or clinical brain stimulation research related to dementia or a cognitive disorder. Dr. Rajji was the TDRA Executive Director at the University of Toronto from 2020 until his transition to UT Southwestern in 2024.This award honors his contributions to brain stimulation and mentorship in this field.

NEW! Our department was superbly represented at the NAMIWalks North Texas event on May 17. In addition to walking and interacting with many members of the community, we hosted a booth about our interventional psychiatry program. Joseph Guillory, M.D., Psychiatry Team Captain and President of NAMI North Texas, presented to the assembled participants about the NAMI mission.

NEW! Training program alumni, and incoming faculty members, Bernice Yau, M.D., and Matt Yung, M.D., presented with Adam Brenner, M.D., at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Los Angeles on the trainee-track topic "No Publications, No Problem! How to Write a Paper and Get Involved in Psychiatry Research as a Trainee," which was co-written by Maravet Baig-Ward, M.D., Ph.D. (not pictured). Our residents Thomas Pak, M.D., Ph.D., and Tope Adedolapo, M.D., M.S., M.B.A., were among the standing room only attendees.

NEW! The Multispecialty Psychiatry Clinic Therapy Team completed a team-building/strength-building seminar.

NEW! The UT Southwestern Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship, directed by Kehinde Obikoya, M.D., held its annual mock trial on May 1. Justice Nancy Kennedy presided over a mock medical malpractice suit following a death by suicide, with attorneys Alina Caratas and Elena Hartnett from the Dallas County District Attorney's Office representing the plaintiff and the defense for the hospital along with fellows from psychiatry and psychology working the case with faculty member participants for each side.

At the 2025 Dewitt C. Alfred, MD Psychiatric Symposium at Morehouse School of Medicine, Temitope Adedolapo, M.D., M.S., M.B.A., presented on the department's Strategic Planning Group for addressing trainee's ACGME feedback for which Dr. Adedolapo received a Participation Award.

Kapila Marambage, M.D., and Olabisi Adams, LCSW, Paths to Recovery Clinic Manager, presented the poster "The Paths to Recovery Bridge Clinic at Parkland Improving Access to Care through Quality Improvement" (coauthors Minnie Mathew, Benjamin Kum, D.O.) at UT Southwestern's annual Celebration of Excellence event.

Psychiatry resident Donald Egan, M.D., presented “Intentional Storytelling in your Medical School Application” to the American Psychiatric Association’s Future Leaders in Psychiatry Program (FLIPP). Dr. Egan also updated the APA's patient and family page on PTSD: What Is Posttraumatic Stress Disorder? 

Carmen Cruz, Psy.D., participated in a panel for the American Psychological Association’s Division on the Society for the Psychology of Women, titled "Thriving and Liberation with Mid-Career Psychologists." The panelists engaged in conversations about their experiences, dilemmas, successes, and choices they have made to live their intersectional feminist values in mid-career.

Photos from the recent American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training Annual Meeting in San Francisco--

Tameka Ellis, M.B.A. (below, second from right) was named Chair of the Lucille Fusaro Meinsler Program Administrator Award Committee.

Wellness Retreat for Faculty and APPs

Friday, June 6, 8:00am to 5:00pm (Breakfast starts at 7:30), at Pegasus Park

(3000 Pegasus Park Dr, Dallas)

CME-certified! Focus on personal resilience, rejuvenating, and reconnecting with your passion for academic medicine alongside like-minded colleagues.