Dr. Ahmari is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at University of Pittsburgh and Director of the Translational OCD Laboratory. She is affiliated with the Translational Neuroscience Program and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. After graduating from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with Bachelor of Science degrees in Biochemistry and Honors Biology, Dr. Ahmari entered the MD-PhD program at Stanford University. For her PhD, she used advanced microscopy techniques to examine mechanisms underlying synapse formation. After completing the MD-PhD program, she performed internship and residency in psychiatry at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. Following her residency, she began her NIMH-sponsored research fellowship in affective and anxiety disorders. In July 2010, she received a K08 Award from NIMH to develop translational research approaches in obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and became an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University. In October 2013, she moved to her current position at University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Ahmari’s research program integrates basic neuroscience approaches and cutting-edge technology with clinical studies of OCD patients. Her lab combines optogenetics, in vivo electrophysiology, transgenic technology, in vivo microscopy, and translatable behavioral measures to investigate pathophysiology underlying compulsive behaviors and anxiety.