Tonisha Kearney-Ramos, PhD

Dr. Tonisha Kearney-Ramos is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurobiology in the Department of Psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), and a Research Scientist at the Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene (RFMH) at the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI). Dr. Kearney-Ramos received her undergraduate pre-medical Bachelors of Science degree in Cellular & Molecular Biology at Tulane University in New Orleans (2010), and completed her graduate training as a NIDA T32 Addiction fellow at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in the Brain Imaging Research Center (Lab Director: Clint Kilts, Ph.D.; Dissertation Mentor: G. Andrew James, Ph.D.), where she received her Doctorate of Philosophy degree (2015) for her research merging network-based human functional neuroimaging and clinical neuropsychological assessment for the characterization of individual differences in the brain’s network-level encoding of working memory cognitive ability in a diverse sample of healthy adults. Following graduate school, Dr. Kearney-Ramos completed a three-year postdoctoral fellowship (2018) as a NIDA T32 Addiction fellow at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). There she received training in the Brain Stimulation Division of the Departments of Psychiatry & Neurosciences (Division Director: Mark George, M.D.) under the mentorship of Dr. Colleen Hanlon, Ph.D. Her research focused on the use of human neuroimaging to identify neural circuit markers of cognitive and behavioral dysfunction in substance use disorders (SUDs), in addition to evaluating the impact of brain stimulation on brain organization and its potential utility for treatment of SUDs.

In July 2018, Dr. Kearney-Ramos joined the research faculty at CUIMC as a NIDA Diversity Scholar in the Division on Substance Abuse. Since joining the Division, she has received new training in human behavioral pharmacology research under the mentorship of Drs. Margaret Haney, Ph.D. and Suzette Evans, Ph.D. As a member of the Cannabis Research Laboratory led by Dr. Margaret Haney, her research has focused on using a multidisciplinary approach for the development of novel treatments in SUDs, namely cannabis use disorders, such as by merging human neuroimaging and brain stimulation with laboratory and clinical paradigms that model the effects of integrated interventions on drug use behaviors, including inpatient and outpatient models of drug self-administration. Dr. Kearney-Ramos has also served as the Vice Chair of CUIMC’s Smithers Foundation Pilot Grant Program for Substance Use-Related Research since 2018 (Chair: Margaret Haney, Ph.D.), and as Co-Director of NYSPI’s new Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Core (TMSC) since she and Dr. Diana Martinez, M.D. (Core Director) initiated the program with the support of the Institute in 2019. Dr. Kearney-Ramos is currently an Associate Member of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, the longest-standing organization in the U.S. addressing substance use disorders. In addition, Dr. Kearney-Ramos is a long-time advocate of the promotion of diversity in the biomedical sciences which she has demonstrated through commitments at all stages of her career, including tutoring and mentoring underrepresented minority students as a graduate fellow, serving as a member of MUSC’s NIH-supported Initiative for Maximizing Student Diversity Program Steering Committee while a postdoctoral fellow, and accepting an appointment as an Ad Hoc member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology Minority Task Force since becoming junior faculty.