Rakesh Karmacharya, MD, PhD

Dr. Rakesh Karmacharya is an Associate Professor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a Principal Investigator in the MGH Center for Genomic Medicine. He is a faculty member in the Harvard Chemical Biology graduate program and the Program in Neuroscience and is also an Associate Member in the Chemical Biology Program at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, faculty member in the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and the Medical Director of the OnTrack Program for First-Episode Psychosis at McLean Hospital.

Dr. Karmacharya received an A.B. in Biochemistry from Harvard University, an M.S. in Molecular Biophysics from Yale University and an MD and a PhD in Biophysics from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. His graduate studies focused on theoretical studies of the quantum mechanics of proton tunneling in condensed phase. He completed an internship in Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and a residency in psychiatry at MGH and McLean Hospital, where he served as the Chief Resident of the Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Program. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in chemical biology at Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.

Dr. Karmacharya runs a research laboratory focused on chemical biology approaches using stem cells to investigate the cellular and molecular underpinnings of psychiatric neurobiology. He is a recipient of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar award, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Clinical Scientist award and the BRAINS award from the National Institute of Mental Health.