Christopher Pittenger, MD, Ph.D. is Mears & Jameson Professor of Psychiatry and Professor in the Child Study Center, Deputy Chair for Translational Research in Psychiatry, Director of the Yale Program for Psychedelic Science, Director of the Yale OCD Research Clinic, and Director of the Neuroscience Research Training Program (NRTP) and the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit at Yale University. He completed his MD and PhD degrees at Columbia University and his residency in adult psychiatry at Yale. He is known for his on the pathophysiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Tourette syndrome, and related conditions, and on harnessing new insights to develop novel strategies for diagnosis, prevention, and treatment. More recently, he and his colleagues have investigated the effects of psychedelic drugs on the brain, and the therapeutic potential of these drugs for OCD and a variety of conditions. With his long-time colleague Ben Kelmendi he is conducting the first placebo-controlled trial of psilocybin for the treatment of OCD. Together with colleagues at Johns Hopkins University and New York University, he and Dr. Kelmendi are spearheading a new initiative to train medical professionals in psychedelic medicine, laying the groundwork to create the workforce needed to provide these therapeutics within the medical system once the become more widely available. As Director of the NRTP he leads Yale’s educational efforts for the training of physician-scientists in psychiatry and has mentored a generation of young investigators. Dr. Pittenger’s work has been recognized and supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the International OCD Foundation, The Tourette’s Association of American, the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative, and numerous other charitable foundations and industry partners. His work has been acknowledged by numerous awards, including the Eva K. Killam Award for Translational Research from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP), a Senior Researcher Award from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and elected membership in the ACNP (Fellow), the American Psychiatric Association (Fellow), and the American Society for Clinical Investigation.
