Diversity in Life Sciences

Dr. Paola Giusti-Rodriguez grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where she earned a BS in Biology at the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras. She completed her PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology at Harvard University, where her doctorate research focused on studying the molecular basis of neurodegeneration. She carried out her postdoctoral research with Dr. Patrick Sullivan at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she employed the multi-parental Collaborative Cross mouse population to better understand antipsychotic side effects. Her work lies at the intersection between neuroscience and functional genomics, and she aims to integrate the tools and techniques of these fields to shed light on the genetics of neuropsychiatric disorders. In 2016, she was awarded a K01 Mentored Research Scientist Development Award by the National Institute of Mental Health for her work focused on functional genomics of psychiatric disorders. Dr. Giusti-Rodriguez is co-founder of the Latin American Genomics Consortium, which seeks to increase the representation of research participants from Latinx admixed ancestry in genetic studies on psychiatric disorders.

Dr. Giusti-Rodriguez currently works in the Adult Research Division and will conduct research in genetic psychiatric illnesses, with interest in human-based studies of neurodevelopmental disorders (including ASD and schizophrenia), at the UF Center for OCD, Anxiety and Related Disorders (COARD). In addition, she serves as an important academic teacher and mentor for medical students, interns, training residents and promoting the research and educational mission of the McKnight Brain Institute (MBI) for Department of Psychiatry.