Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program Team

Professor, Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Sanjay J. Mathew, M.D. is the Marjorie Bintliff Johnson and Raleigh White Johnson, Jr. Vice Chair for Research and Professor in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine and Director of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program. He is also a Staff Physician at the Michael E. Debakey VA Medical Center and Senior Scientist at The Menninger Clinic. He graduated from Dartmouth College and Baylor College of Medicine, and trained in psychiatry and mood/anxiety disorders research at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He previously served as faculty at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where he co-directed the Mood & Anxiety Disorders Program. His research program focuses on experimental therapeutics and pathophysiology related to treatment-resistant mood and anxiety disorders and PTSD, with a particular focus on developing rapid-acting and novel pharmacotherapies. 
 
Dr. Mathew has authored or co-authored over 180 manuscripts and book chapters, and serves on the editorial board of several journals. In 2016, he co-edited the book “Ketamine for Treatment-Resistant Depression.” He serves on the Boards of the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology and the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (where he is Chief Medical Officer), and is an elected Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Dr. Mathew performs clinical consultations for treatment-resistant depression and anxiety and has been awarded “Best Doctor” honors annually since 2011.   

Professor, Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Dr. Alan Swann does clinical and translational research focusing on behavior, neurophysiology, and biomarkers related to action control and behavioral sensitization. This work aims to develop new diagnostic measures and drug therapies for refractory bipolar disorders, suicidal behavior, alcoholism and PTSD. 

Assistant Professor, Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Brittany O’Brien is a licensed clinical psychologist and joined the department’s faculty in 2018. Her clinical focus is delivering and expanding access to evidence-based behavioral interventions for patients with chronic, treatment resistant mood and trauma-related disorders. Her research aligns closely with her clinical work, focusing on novel and cutting-edge interventions for mood disorders and their effectiveness in community-based settings.  She has served as coinvestigator on federal, state and industry-sponsored studies focusing on mood and trauma-related disorders. Dr. O’Brien is the lead psychologist for the pre-doctoral Mood Disorders Clinic training track for the Psychology Internship program. She also serves as a clinical consultant and liaison to other departments in the College and oversees behavioral health programming and services for the Baylor Medicine’s Comprehensive Healthcare Clinic, Concierge Healthcare Clinic, and Post-Covid Care Clinic. 

Assistant Professor, Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences 

Dr. Amanda Tamman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine. She aspires to improve understanding the neural ‘imprints’ left by stress and trauma to best target treatment of psychiatric disorders. Amanda’s work has two aims. First, she focuses on identifying the interaction between fMRI, neurophysiological, genetic, and behavioral factors in understanding trauma-related psychiatric disorders. Second, she aims to use this knowledge to develop and test novel treatments for stress-related disorders and potential mechanisms of their effects. This work includes endeavors to examine the effect of psychedelic agents on genetic markers of aging and inflammation, and the effects of psychedelic agents on relational factors such as interpersonal skills in work funded by the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention and AIM Youth Mental Health. 

Clinical Research Psychologist, Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center 

The focus of Dr. Averill’s work is on studying and supporting novel, rapid-acting interventions with potential to save lives. She is a expert in the psychoneurobiology of chronic stress pathology – namely posttraumatic stress, suicidality and rapid-acting interventions. Her research focuses on the fine-grained understanding of mechanisms underlying psychedelic medicines, the effects of chronic stress and trauma, and treatment response. She has co-authored multiple recent manuscripts reporting positive outcomes of ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT treatment among Special Operations Forces Veterans and has published widely on studies of ketamine for stress- and trauma-related concerns 

Dr. Averill is an Associate Professor at Baylor College of Medicine’s Menninger Department of Behavioral Sciences, Clinical Research Psychologist at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston, maintains a faculty appointment at Yale School of Medicine and the National Center for PTSD and is a clinician and innovation expert advisor at NPSYT, PLLC. 

Assistant Professor in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Neuropsychiatry

Dr. Murphy's research uses neurophysiological measures of brain activity to identify patterns of information that can be exploited to design biomarkers of mood, trauma, and suicide disorders. His program objective is to create scalable biomarkers that can be easily applied in everyday clinical settings to guide clinician judgement, and to reduce the cost-burden of failed treatments for patients. 

Medical Resident, Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences - Education
Baylor College of Medicine 

Grace Pham is a fourth-year psychiatry resident who is interested in suicidality, PTSD and psychedelics. They received their DO and Ph.D. degrees from the University of North Texas Health Science Center in 2020. They have enjoyed and continue to enjoy the opportunity to learn more about and actively participate in clinical research, as their Ph.D. work was conducted in animal models. 

Associate Professor

Dr. Ramiro Salas uses functional brain imaging to study the neuronal circuits involved in processing reward and disappointment and how these circuits are changed in addiction, depression, and other conditions. His lab is also developing gene expression data-mining techniques to obtain anatomical hypotheses of disease from genetic screenings.

Voluntary Faculty, BCM Department of Anesthesiology

In addition to her voluntary faculty appointment, Dr. Allison Wells is a partner at Northwest Anesthesiology and Pain and medical director of Lone Star Infusion. Her research interests include ketamine for depression, anxiety, and PTSD and the combination of holistic and anesthetic treatment approaches for mood disorders.

Associate Professor, Menninger Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences 

Dr. Chadi Abdallah has expertise in antidepressant clinical trials, translational clinical neuroscience, multimodal neuroimaging, and the development of rapid-acting antidepressants for the treatment of depression, PTSD, and other stress-related psychiatric disorders. He employs a broad range of pharmacological challenges, neuroimaging modalities, and network neuroscience approaches to study the neurobiology of depression and other psychiatric disorders and the mechanisms underlying treatment response and resistance. His research program focuses on understanding the mechanisms underlying trauma, depression, and chronic stress, with emphasis on the role of synaptic connectivity. 

Associate Professor, Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences 

Dr. Michelle Patriquin, Ph.D., ABPP is the Director of Research and a Senior and Board Certified (ABPP) Psychologist at The Menninger Clinic, as well as an Associate Professor in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine. Her research interests are in the subjective and objective precursors of mental illness and how to translate these findings into actionable clinical interventions through the invention of new technologies. Dr. Patriquin has authored 185 articles and presentations on her research, co-edited a psychology textbook, and is the editor of several journal special issues. Her research is funded by federal and foundation grants, and she has received numerous awards for her research and mentorship. Dr. Patriquin completed her undergraduate and graduate education at Virginia Tech: B.S. in Psychology, B.S. in Entrepreneurship, Innovation, & Technology Management, M.S. in Clinical Psychology, and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. 

Research Coordinator 

Andreas is responsible for coordinating the R33 Xen1101, AMPA PET and ENCALM projects. He graduated from Rice University in 2022 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Statistics. He hopes to attend medical school in the future and to continue being involved in clinical research.  

Research Coordinator 

Julia is responsible for coordinating the R33 Xen1101, AMPA PET, and ENCALM projects. She graduated from Rice University in 2023 with a B.A. in Cognitive Sciences and minors in Jewish Studies and Politics, Law, and Social Thought. Her research interests include trauma and its impact on mood and anxiety disorders, as well as its interplay with personality disorders. She hopes to pursue her Ph.D. in clinical psychology in the future. 

Ryann Tudor is a senior at Rice University, where she will receive her B.A. in Psychology. Her interests include neurophysiological biomarkers of mood disorders, and how these translate to the development of treatments for depression, PTSD and other conditions. 

Sreya Rahman is a medical student at Baylor College of Medicine. Her research interests include mental illness and women’s health, and she is currently assisting on the Xenon and AMPA PET studies. 

Pranav Narayanan is a junior at Rice University majoring in Cognitive Sciences. He is interested in novel major depressive disorder treatments, ranging from Ketamine to Electroconvulsive therapy, and how they can be further developed to meet the individual needs of a patient.