In 2015, Linda Valeri, Ph.D., was a young investigator with more ideas than funding to carry them out. Armed with a doctorate in biostatistics from Harvard University, she was at that critical juncture where she needed a lab– and a research team– to put her big ideas into motion.
Enter pilot funding through the OPTICS: Open Translational Science in Schizophrenia opportunity. The $50,000 award was enough for her to hire a postdoc and kickstart an ambitious research program. Her goal: sorting out the multiple pathways that interact to bring healing –or not– to people with severe mental illness. The work led to an early-career KO1 grant and laid the foundation for her first RO1, which she was awarded in 2023.
Dr. Valeri is now an assistant professor in biostatistics at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. An expert on causal inference, her focus is applying statistical methods to improve our understanding of mental health, social and environmental determinants of health, and health disparities…
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