Anthony Charuvastra, M.D.

Assistant Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Research Fellow

I grew up in Los Angeles and went to college at Brown University in Providence, RI. In college I studied the history and philosophy of science and wrote my honors thesis on the history of behavioral genetics. My mentor at Brown was Anne Fausto-Sterling, who nurtured my moral and critical sensibilities towards the human sciences and encouraged me to be a curious but also cautious scientist/physician. I also received my medical degree at Brown University, where I was fortunate to work as a teaching assistant in an undergraduate bioethics course and study with the historian and psychiatrist Gary Belkin (who is now at Bellevue). At Brown, I was able to take two years off between my 3rd and 4th year to work as project manager in the Division of General Internal Medicine. My mentors there were all HIV physicians who were dedicated to linking the science of HIV treatment with prevention principles and with political advocacy. At Brown, and specifically during this time "off," I became committed to the idea that physicians who have had the privilege of first-rank training have an obligation to further the understanding of suffering through research and find ways to apply these findings for the improvement of patient care. I returned home to Los Angeles to complete my adult psychiatry training at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. At UCLA, I worked with the historian and psychiatrist Joel Braslow examining the introduction of neuroleptic medications into California psychiatric hospitals and also worked with Stephen Marder on a project looking at ethical issues in psychiatric research. At UCLA I became interested in PTSD as a paradigmatic psychiatric illness that explicitly links biology with experience and learning, and this has become my main research interest.

I came to the NYU Child Study Center because it was the one program where the faculty were explicit about their commitment to linking academic and intellectual inquiry with clinical care. My professional biography reveals how important mentors have been to me, and the NYU program was the place where it was clear I would receive the best professional and clinical guidance and support. I have been very privileged to spend the year working with Marylene Cloitre, the Director of the Institute of Trauma and Stress. Xavier Castellanos has also been a steady presence in maintaining my commitment to linking research to clinical care, and I hope to remain at the Child Study Center following my child/adolescent residency to pursue a research fellowship with a focus on neuropeptides and aspects of emotional development. The richness of the clinical experience at both Bellevue and the Child Study Center has deepened my sense of the need for further innovations in clinical treatment, and the faculty at both sites continue to be inspiring in their dedication to patient care and to intellectual inquiry in the service of patient care. My mentors in Rhode Island recently said to me, "Of course it's hard to do research and also see patients, but what choice do you have? It's the right thing to do." Put simply, the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at NYU gets that.