Madeline M O'brien

Maddie is currently in her fifth year of the Neuroscience PhD program at Mount Sinai, and will defend her dissertation in March 2023. Within the Neuroscience multidisciplinary training area at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Maddie is a member of the Computational Psychiatry Unit (PI: Xiaosi Gu). Maddie's thesis project uses computational modeling, Bayes Theorem, decision-making games, and 7-Tesla MRI to explore the mechanisms subserving human behavior during environmental uncertainty.

Before beginning her doctoral degree at Mount Sinai in 2018, Maddie graduated from Northwestern University in 2016 with a degree in Psychology and Theatre, and completed an honors thesis in the Affective and Clinical Neuroscience Lab. Maddie then completed a two-year postbaccalaureate IRTA fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health in the Section on Integrative Neuroimaging, part of the Clinical and Translational Neuroscience Branch.

Outside of research, Maddie's Sinai involvements include: Executive Director of the Practice Enhancement, Engagement, Resilience, and Support program for first-year PhD students; Trainee Health and Wellness representative on the Mental Health Steering Committee; a PhD representative on the Office of Wellbeing and Resilience Student & Trainee Advisory Committee; and graduate school representative on the Health and Wellness Committee for Student Council. Maddie was a co-leader for the Sinai COVID Student Workforce and Graduate School Liaison for COVID efforts in 2020, and was on the COVID Blood Response Team. She has TA'ed for the Summer Undergraduate Research Program (2019), Graduate Neuroscience Core IV: Molecular Pathogenesis of Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders (2020 & 2022), and Effective Scientific Communication (2020-2022).