Amelia Gallitano, M.D. Ph.D. has been intrigued by the neurobiological processes that influence mood and behavior since she was in high school. She is now a tenured Associate Professor in the Departments of Basic Medical Sciences at Psychiatry at the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix. She is a board-certified psychiatrist, and holds adjunct positions in Neuroscience at Arizona State University and the Translational Genomics Research Institute TGen) Dr. Gallitano received her M.D. and Ph.D. in Neuroscience, from the University of Pennsylvania, and completed Psychiatry Residency at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. She conducted Postdoctoral Fellowshiresearch at Washington University School of Medicine in Saint Louis, in the laboratory of Jeffrey Milbrandt, M.D. Ph.D. where she was also an Instructor in the Department of Psychiatry. In 2007, she moved to Arizona to join the new University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix. Her research investigates the hypothesis that immediate early genes mediate the interaction of environmental stress and genetic predisposition, to influence the development of psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia and mood disorders.