Kiran Girdhar, PhD

Kiran Girdhar, PhD, is a junior faculty with appointments in both the Department of Psychiatry and the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences. She earned her doctoral degree in biophysics from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, USA. Prior to her PhD, Dr. Girdhar completed her Master of Science in Material Science at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, and holds a Bachelor's degree in Materials Science Engineering from Punjab Engineering College, India.

Dr. Girdhar's current research endeavors revolve around unfolding the biological insights of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders through the application of advanced sequencing techniques. Her past work includes a focus on deciphering the role of the three-dimensional epigenome in neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases, utilizing extensive multi-omics data derived from human postmortem brain samples. Dr. Girdhar has been recognized for her contributions with prestigious awards, including the Alzheimer’s Association Research Fellowship (2021-2023), the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology Travel Award (2022), and the Promising Young Investigator Travel Award from the Schizophrenia International Research Society (2019).