Dear Faculty, Staff, Students and Residents,
As the IMH Marshall Fellows Program enters its fifth year since its inception in 2019, I am delighted to share that the selection process for 2023/2024 has been completed and six outstanding proposals have been recommended for funding by the Chairs of the Committee.
The decisions were finalized following the thorough review and consideration of many outstanding project proposals submitted by both PhD and MD applicants this year. As the Fellowship Program was originally developed to also support the training of clinician scientist psychiatrists, three of the six fellowships have been awarded to MDs.
It is with great pleasure that I announce the 2023/2024 cohort of the IMH Marshall Fellows Program. Please join me in warmly congratulating the following awardees, listed in alphabetical order:
IMH Marshall Fellowship Awardees & Research Titles
Nicholas Ainsworth, MD: Measuring psychomotor response to L-DOPA challenge as a biomarker for outcomes in late-life depression: A feasibility study
Clare Killikelly, PhD: Digital early detection of psychological disorder after the loss of a loved one
Ana Mikolić, PhD: Screening for psychological risk factors to improve management of mild traumatic brain injury
John-Jose Nunez, MD: Predicting and Identifying Depression in Cancer Patients From Their Initial Oncology Consultation Document Using Natural Language Processing
Chithra Pream Raju, MD: Cannabidiol adjunctive therapy for acute bipolar depression: A randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial
Megan Rowland, PhD: Investigating the Role of Baf53b in Regulating Parvalbumin Neuronal Gene Expression and Autism Behaviours Across Development
I encourage you to visit the IMH Marshall Fellows web page to learn more about each of our awardees and the exciting research they will be pursuing. I look forward to sharing further updates on our Fellows in the months to come, and additionally, I hope you will all join us at next year’s Research Day, tentatively scheduled for June 13, 2024, where our Fellows will be presenting a talk on their respective projects.
On behalf of the Institute of Mental Health and the UBC Department of Psychiatry, I wish each of our 2023/2024 IMH Marshall Fellows much success as they gain valuable experience that will both accelerate their learning and serve as an important foundation for their future pursuits in translational mental health research.
Sincerely,
Dr. Lakshmi N. Yatham, MBBS, FRCPC, MRCPsych (UK), MBA (Exec)
Professor and Head, UBC Department of Psychiatry
Director, Institute of Mental Health, UBC
Regional Head and Program Medical Director, VCH/PHC
The UBC Department of Psychiatry Administration Office respectfully acknowledges the land on which we live, work and play is the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples, the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-waututh).