Arpana Agrawal, PhD
Dr. Arpana Agrawal, PhD, is Professor of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine. Her research focuses on the genetic underpinnings of substance use and misuse and the extent to which these genetic factors shape the comorbidities between substance involvement and other mental and physical health outcomes. Arpana received her PhD. From Virginia Commonwealth University, under the mentorship of Dr. Ken Kendler. She then joined Washington University School of Medicine as a postdoctoral scholar and is now a tenured Professor at the institution. Arpana has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 2007. Her current grants include her role as Site PI of the Substance Use Disorders Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, Scientific Director of the Collaborative Study of the Genetics of Alcoholism, as well as grants examining the genomic underpinnings of opioid misuse and resulting death due to respiratory depression, as well as the neonatal neurobiological correlates of prenatal cannabis exposure. She also serves as training director on a NIDA neuroscience T32 and on the ABCD Genetics Working Group. Arpana has published over 280 peer-reviewed publications and continues to teach undergrad and graduate level courses in complex trait genetics.