Executive Committee | Administrative Staff | Education Staff | Org Chart

Postal Addresses and Phone Numbers

From the Los Angeles area	From the Long Beach area	From the San Diego area
Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System MIRECC #210A 11301 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90073 (310) 268-3647	VA Long Beach Healthcare System MIRECC, 06/116A 5901 E. 7th Street Long Beach, CA 90822 (562) 826-8000 ext. 2546	VA San Diego Healthcare System MIRECC 3350 La Jolla Village Drive San Diego, CA 92161 (858) 552-8585 ext. 2261 or ext. 7650

Executive Committee

Stephen Marder, MD - Director

Dr Stephen R. Marder is the Director of the VISN, 22 Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center for the Department of Veterans Affairs, has been Professor of the Semel Institute of Neuroscience & Human Behavior at UCLA since 1991, and is the Director of the Section on Psychosis at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. Dr. Marder received his AB from the University of Pennsylvania and his medical degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo. After an internship at Denver General Hospital he completed a residency at the University of Southern California. From 1975-1977 he was a Clinical Associate in the Biological Psychiatry Branch at the National Institute of Mental Health. In 1977 he joined the staff at the Brentwood VA Medical Center and the faculty at UCLA.

Dr. Marder's research has focused on the treatment of schizophrenia and the pharmacology of antipsychotic drugs. He has authored or co-authored more than 200 journal articles and chapters and developed The Schizophrenia Research Unit together with the late Theodore Van Putten. This Unit has been an important site for training a number of psychiatrists who developed careers in research.

Dr. Marder has received many awards, including the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, the Alexander Gralnick Award from the American Psychiatric Association, and the Kempf Award from the American Psychiatric Association. He is listed in The Best Doctors in America and America's Top Doctors. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, a Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and a member of the American College of Psychiatrists, the Association for Clinical Psychosocial Research, the Southern California Psychiatric Society, and the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology.

Greg Brown, PhD - Associate Director & Director, Imaging Core

Dr. Brown has worked at the VA San Diego Healthcare System since 1995. Dr. Brown serves as Associate Director of Clinical Neuroscience at the UCSD Center for Functional MRI and Co-Director of the VA/UCSD Laboratory of Cognitive Imaging. He is an ABPP/ABCN Diplomate in Clinical Neuropsychology. He received his MD from the University of Pennsylvania and did his psychiatric residencies at Yale University and UCSF.

Dr. Brown’s research uses computational modeling and brain imaging methods to investigate neuropsychiatric disorders. His laboratory makes use of functional, structural, and metabolic brain imaging to investigate the etiology and clinical course of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, especially schizophrenia. The laboratory’s imaging studies focus on the development of brain imaging methods and their application to clinical problems.

Christopher Reist, MD, Associate Director & Director, Education & Dissemination Unit

Dr. Reist is Chief of Research at the VA Long Beach Healthcare System, Director of the Education and Dissemination Unit of the MIRECC, and Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Reist received his undergraduate degree in biology and chemistry at Eastern Mennonite University followed by medical training at Virginia Commonwealth University and a psychiatric residency at University of California, Irvine. Prior to becoming the Director of Medical Research, he served as the Chief of Mental Health for the Long Beach VA Healthcare System.

Dr. Reist's research interest is in the area of drug metabolism and transport. A current project is looking at how drug transporters at the blood-brain-barrier can affect how much medication actually reaches the brain. While these systems serve to protect itself from environmental toxins, they can also work to "pump" medications such as risperidone and olanzapine out of the brain. This may explain some cases of treatment non-response. He is studying approaches to measure how active this system is in individuals along with ways of modifying its activity.

David Braff, MD - Co-Chair, MIRECC Executive Committee

Dr. David Braff is a Professor of Psychiatry, Director of the Schizophrenia Program at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, and co-chair of the MIRECC Executive committee. He trained at the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, and the University of California, San Francisco. His research interests center around 1) the identification of inhibitory and information processing deficits in various psychiatric disorders (with an emphasis on schizophrenia); 2) understanding the neural substrate dysfunctions of schizophrenia spectrum subjects using human and translational animal model studies; 3) using information processing deficits, nonlinear (chaotic) measures, and attentional dysregulation as endophenotypes in family/genetic studies, 4) utilizing translational research to identify new antipsychotic compounds and to assess the efficacy of antipsychotic medications that can improve the functional outcome of schizophrenia patients, and 5) he is the Director of the NIMH Consortium on the Genetics of Schizophrenia.

David Braff has published over 200 articles, related reviews and book chapters and is a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and received the Kempf Research Prize from the APA. His peers have selected him as one of the “Best Doctors” in the United States and in San Diego. He serves on many national and international committees and societies, and is on the Editorial Boards of the Archives of General Psychiatry and five other journal editorial boards.

 

Lisa T. Eyler, Ph.D. - Director, VA Special Fellowship in Advanced Psychology

Lisa T. Eyler, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego and a Clinical Research Psychologist in the Desert-Pacific Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center at the San Diego VA. Dr. Eyler received her undergraduate degree from Duke University in 1991 and her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1996. She then completed a clinical psychology internship and a NIMH-funded post-doctoral fellowship in geriatric psychology at UCSD and the San Diego VA. Dr. Eyler is the director of the VA Special Fellowship in Advanced Psychology at the San Diego site.

Dr. Eyler’s research focuses on using magnetic resonance imaging to explore differences in brain structure and function among individuals related to development, aging, and severe mental illness. Her studies involve people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, healthy elderly and young children, and children at risk for autism spectrum disorders.

Mark Geyer, PhD - Director, Neuropsychopharmacology Unit

Dr Mark Geyer is a Professor of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at UCSD, where he has worked since completing his Ph.D. in Psychology in 1972. He is actively involved in both the Ph.D. Group in Neurosciences and the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. Program. He is a pioneer in the translational study of sensorimotor gating deficits in schizophrenia and related animal models. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed papers and many invited reviews and chapters. Dr. Geyer is an Editor for Psychopharmacology and Neuropharmacology, President and Fellow of the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society, Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Vice-President of the international Serotonin Club, and a member of the Scientific Council of NARSAD.

Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, he received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Oregon Honors College and his doctorate in Psychology from U.C.S.D. As the author of over 200 journal articles, Dr. Geyer's research in information processing with both clinical populations (patients with schizophrenia) and animal models has brought him international recognition in the field of psychobiology.

Dr. Geyer’s laboratory uses behavioral measures and psychopharmacological manipulations in rodents and humans to examine the roles of monoamines in behavior, to develop animal models of human drug effects, and to explore information-processing deficits in schizophrenia. He uses startle measures of habituation and prepulse inhibition, which are deficient in schizophrenics and mimicked in rodents by pharmacological, developmental, and genetic manipulations. He also uses a Behavioral Pattern Monitor in rats and mice to provide multivariate assessments of spatio-temporal patterns of exploratory behavior, including nonlinear dynamical measures of behavioral organization. His recent work focuses on phenotypic characterizations of gene knockout mice, including mice lacking specific receptors for dopamine, glutamate, and serotonin.

Michael F. Green, PhD - Director, Treatment Unit

Michael Foster Green, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Dr. Green obtained his B.A. in psychobiology at Oberlin College, his Ph.D. in neuropsychology at Cornell University, and did his postdoctoral training in neuropsychology at UCLA. His research activities are devoted to understanding the nature and implications of cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia, including neurocognitive indicators of genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia and neural mechanisms of cognitive dysfunction. His laboratory explores the relationship between cognitive deficits in schizophrenia and activities of daily living, and the neurocognitive effects of antipsychotic and adjunctive medications.

Dr. Green has authored over 120 journal articles and written two books: Schizophrenia from a Neurocognitive Perspective: Probing the Impenetrable Darkness, published in 1998, and Schizophrenia Revealed: From Neurons to Social Interactions, published in 2001. Dr. Green is currently president of the Society for Research in Psychopathology and is on the editorial boards of Schizophrenia Research, Schizophrenia Bulletin and Cognitive Neuropsychiatry.

Alexander S. Young, MD, MSHS - Director, Health Services Unit

Dr. Alexander Young is Associate Professor at the UCLA Department of Psychiatry; and consultant at RAND. Dr. Young focuses on understanding and improving the quality and efficiency of mental health services, provider behavior, and the management of mental health care and is a national leader in the evaluation and improvement of mental health service quality.

A former Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar and VA Advanced Career Development Awardee, Dr. Young has received numerous honors, including the American Psychiatric Association 2000 Early Career Health Services Research Award, and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill 2002 Exemplary Psychiatrist Award. Dr. Young is currently principal investigator for EQUIP, a VA project to evaluate and disseminate methods for improving the quality of care for schizophrenia and CHIACC, a project funded by the VA Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI) to develop informatics systems supporting collaborative care for chronic illness.

MIRECC Administrative Staff

Jon Strmiska

Jon Strmiska is the administrative officer for the MIRECC. He is based in San Diego but coordinates administrative activities at all three MIRECC sites.

Jeffrey Grayson - Program Assistant

Greater Los Angeles

Kathy Arndt - Program Assistant

Long Beach

Beatriz Perez - Management Analyst

San Diego

Robert West - Management Analyst

San Diego

Education Staff

Chris Reist, MD, MBA - Director, Education & Dissemination Unit

See above

Kathy Arndt - Program Assistant

Long Beach