Assad Meymandi Distinguished Professor and Chair, Department of Psychiatry
Scientific Advisor, Carolina Stress Initiative
Research Synopsis
Dr. Samantha Meltzer-Brody, MD, MPH, is the Assad Meymandi Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry in the UNC School of Medicine. She also serves as the Director for the UNC Center for Women’s Mood Disorders. Her current research efforts are focused primarily on Perinatal Depression and she is currently funded by multiple NIH grants to investigate epidemiologic, genetic, and other biomarker models of perinatal depression. She established the international postpartum depression consortium (PACT) and is the co-I of the PPD ACT app, a smart phone study that is a large international genetic study of postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. Dr. Meltzer-Brody and colleagues also investigate novel treatment options for depression in perinatal women and she is the academic PI for the brexanolone clinical trials. She also collaborates with colleagues on global health efforts including perinatal mental health in Malawi, Africa. Dr. Meltzer-Brody has been named one of the “Top 10 Women in Medicine” from the Triangle Business Journal and is the 2016 recipient of the North Carolina Psychiatric Association Eugene Hargrove Award and the 2015 Arnold Kaluzny Distinguished Alumni Award, from Public Health Leadership Program of the UNC School of Public Health. She is also the founder of the Taking Care of Our Own Program, a resource for UNC School of Medicine and Health Care employees.
