Washington University in St. Louis (WU)
My career goal is to be a productive and independently-funded research scientist performing clinical neuroimaging research that investigates dopamine dysfunction in schizophrenia. I want to investigate the relationships between dopaminergic signaling dysfunction and behaviors and symptoms of schizophrenia based on hypotheses-driven research questions. I believe that the neuroimaging field has sufficiently developed, and will continue to develop, sophisticated tools to investigate the role of dopamine in schizophrenia in humans in ways that can quickly and effectively be translated into identification of novel pharmacotherapeutic targets and vulnerability factors. I will focus on disentangling the roles of altered dopamine release and altered dopamine receptor levels in the symptomatology of schizophrenia using PET imaging, and possibly other neuroimaging methods such as fMRI if appropriate. Work on these goals will contribute to development of novel pharmacotherapies and identification of exogenous and endogenous contributors to schizophrenia.