Meet the team
Hilary Marusak, Ph.D.
Director
Dr. Marusak is an Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, Wayne State University School of Medicine. She also has a secondary faculty appointment Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute for Child and Family Development and the Department of Pharmacology, is a Scientific Member of the Karmanos Cancer Institute and the CURES Center, and a Science Advisor for the nonprofit organization Kids Kicking Cancer.
Carmen Carpenter
Division Coordinator
Carmen earned her B.A. in Psychology and B.S. in Criminal Justice from Wayne State University and is currently pursuing a Master's of Social Work at Wayne State University. Her research interests include the effects of sleep duration and violence exposure on mental health. In her free time, she enjoys crafting, hiking, and spending time with her bunny.
Collaborators
Jeanne Barcelona, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Kinesiology, Health and Sports Studies
Dr. Barcelona's line of research explores how social determinants of health influence physical, mental and cognitive outcomes across the lifespan. Her research also examines broader antecedents that influence health behaviors like physical activity, as well as effective research-informed interventions that support and sustain healthy lifestyles across the lifespan.
Laura Benjamins, M.D.
Professor, Department of Pediatrics
Dr. Benjamins is a board-certified specialist in pediatrics and adolescent medicine with a focus on providing care to youth from underserved communities. At Wayne State University, she practices at Wayne Pediatrics, a non-profit medical home located in downtown Detroit, dedicated to serving young people in urban settings. Dr. Benjamins' approach to care emphasizes addressing both the medical needs and the social determinants of health, along with the complex psycho-social challenges that many adolescents, especially those who have experienced trauma.
Lisa M. Blair, Ph.D., R.N.
Assistant Professor, College of Nursing
Dr. Blair is an Assistant Professor at the College of Nursing, Wayne State University. She has a Ph.D. in nursing with a graduate interdisciplinary specialization in quantitative research methods. Her postdoctoral training in pediatric research, data science, and perinatal substance use was completed at the University of Kentucky and the University of Virginia. She is a Board member of the Nursing Practice Corporation (NPC), the nonprofit owner and administrator of the nurse-run Campus Health Center and Taylor Street Primary Care Clinic in the heart of Detroit.
Susie Brummelte, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychology
Dr. Susie Brummelte is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Wayne State University and the Chair of the Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Area within the Department. She is also a Faculty Member of the Translational Neuroscience Program as well as the new Integrative Neuroscience Program in Research and Education (INSPIRE). Dr. Brummelte leads the Developmental Psychobiology lab, and her research focuses on the effects of early adversity and perinatal drug exposure on brain development and behavioral and neuroanatomical outcome in male and female offspring. Further, she is investigating the consequences of exposure to depression, stress, drugs or medications during pregnancy and the postpartum on the maternal brain and maternal care behavior. Her research is funded by the National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA).
Randon Jenkins, DNP, R.N.
Clinical Instructor, College of Nursing
Dr. Jenkins is an adult gerontology primary care nurse practitioner. He started his teaching career over seven years ago with a goal of adequately preparing students for clinical practice. His clinical areas of practice have included cardiac nursing, women's health, primary care, and community health. His goals of care include prevention and restoration care within vulnerable communities.
Krishna Rao Maddipati, Ph.D.
Professor, Director of Lipidomics Core Facility, Department of Pathology
Dr. Maddipati is primarily interested in evaluating the role of bioactive lipids, especially metabolites of polyunsaturated fatty acids, in inflammation and unalamation (un-ala-mation; maintenance of homeostasis from lipid mediator balance). These include metabolites of ω-6 and ω-3 fatty acids by all three major pathways of PUFA metabolism, viz., Cyclooxygenase, Lipoxygenase, and the Cytochrome P450. Identification of lipid biomarkers in cancer and inflammatory diseases by LC-MS and identification of anticancer and anti-inflammatory compounds in dietary ingredients to provide a biochemical rationale for their beneficial effects are other areas of research interest to his group.
David Ledgerwood, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences
Dr. Ledgerwood is Professor and Director of the Nicotine and Tobacco Research Division in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences. His research focuses on behavioral treatments for and mechanisms of tobacco use, substance use and behavioral addictions. He is currently examining the use of cannabinoids for management of mental health symptoms among veterans, and development of behavioral interventions to reduce the impact of home PM2.5 on children of caregivers who use cannabis.
Lisa S. Panisch, Ph.D., MSW
Assistant Professor, School of Social Work
Dr. Panisch is an Assistant Professor at the Wayne State University School of Social Work. She conducts research on intergenerational patterns of trauma and its consequences, as well as trauma-focused biobehavioral interventions. Panisch specializes in understanding the effects that childhood trauma can have on a variety of mental health and functional conditions, including obsessive-compulsive, dissociative, and somatoform symptom presentations. Specific areas of focus include investigating the impact of a parent/caregiver's history of trauma on parenting behaviors, parent-child attachment and relational dynamics, as well as subsequent implications and neurodevelopmental consequences for children's behavioral health across the lifespan.
Tehmina Shakir, M.D., DAAETS
Assistant Clinical Professor
Dr. Shakir is a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist and assistant clinical professor at Wayne State University, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences. Dr. Shakir has been collaborating with Dr. Hilary Marusak and her team members at the THINK Lab in different projects. Her focus in teaching has been to utilize current research and publications to facilitate developing curricula, teaching, and supervising trainees in our program (medical students, psychiatry residents, child and adolescent psychiatry fellows, and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners completing their preceptorship in our program). She also supervises child and adolescent psychiatry fellows for their quality improvement projects (QIP) which is a requirement in our program before they graduate. All the QIP were submitted for Detroit Medical Center QuESST Research Day and Annual Michigan Summit Quality Improvement and Patient Safety and Wellness. She has been invited as a speaker in departmental grand rounds and in regional/national conferences) to talk on topics related to trauma and adversities. She has been awarded diplomate status with The American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress.
Eric Woodcock, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences
Dr. Eric Woodcock is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at Wayne State University (WSU) School of Medicine (SOM) with a secondary faculty appointment in the Department of Pharmacology. Dr. Woodcock completed his Ph.D. training in Translational Neuroscience at WSU SOM supported by NIDA F31 and Thomas C. Rumble Predoctoral Fellowships. He completed his Postdoctoral Fellowship at Yale University from supported by a NIDA T32 Training Grant and a K99 Career Transition Award. Dr. Woodcock’s research program focuses on investigating neurobiological mechanisms that underlie substance use disorders using multimodal in vivo neuroimaging techniques and human behavioral pharmacology.