Trainees

Learn more about our trainees!

2025-2026 PGY-I Research Track Residents

Joseph Barnett, M.D., Ph.D.

Joseph completed his undergraduate training in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Western Michigan, and his MD, PhD training in Neuroscience at the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine and Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. For his graduate training, Joseph studied the molecular neuropharmacology of psilocybin; in Residency, he plans to extend and apply this work towards the development of novel psychotherapeutics for treatment-refractory depression and other disorders. Joseph has been a beekeeper in many states, taught second grade in Honduras, and has honed his skills in sailing, skiing, surfing, soccer and climbing - - all of which he will put to good use in the next phase of his life in San Diego.

Gabriel Zamora, M.D.

Gabriel was born and raised in Southern California, and joins us now from the UC San Francisco School of Medicine. His research interests focus on child development, and specifically the intersection of social media screen use and mental health (including substance use, mania and obsessive-compulsive disorder). At UCSF, Gabriel reported findings in these areas from the multi-site Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, with his work receiving national media coverage including NBC, CBS, FOX11, Healthline, Yahoo, KTLA, and US News. He plans to extend these studies via the ABCD site at UC San Diego. Gabriel is passionate about educational outreach, mentoring underrepresented students, and advocating for mental health equity, and has published with co-Resident Maribel Patiño on advancing Latine representation in his future field of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

2025-2026 PGY-II Research Track Residents

Joseph Friedman, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H.

Joe joins us from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he completed his MD and PhD in Social Medicine. Before that, he undertook a master's in public health and a three-year data science fellowship at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. His research combines epidemiological and anthropological approaches to studying substance use, drug overdose, mental illness, and other socially-bound causes of mortality and morbidity. He has a particular interest in the US-Mexico border region, and has spent several years living and working in Tijuana, Mexico. 

Maribel Patiño, M.D., Ph.D.

Maribel was born and raised in California. She earned a bachelor's degree in Cell and Molecular Biology, with a focus on Neurobiology, from UC Berkeley (Go Bears!) Her MD/PhD training was completed at UC San Diego, where she conducted her thesis research at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies under the guidance of Dr. Ed Callaway, earning a PhD in Neuroscience. Through the Brain Initiative, she developed neurotechnology that integrates transcriptomics with viral tracing tools to study cortical connectivity at a more granular resolution. Maribel is excited to combine her training in psychiatry and neuroscience to explore the biological foundations of psychiatric disorders, particularly mood disorders and psychosis.

2025-2026 PGY-III Research Track Residents

Lay Kodama, M.D., Ph.D.

Lay spent her Undergrad years as a neuroscience major at Johns Hopkins, did a Master’s of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge on a Churchill Scholarship followed by an MD, PhD (Neurosciences) at UCSF. Since 2022, Lay has been a post-doc at UCSF using bioinformatics with EHR data to develop predictive models for inpatient delirium risk; her clinical interests include Geropsychiatry.

Tara Trujillo, M.D.

Tara comes to us from the 4-year medical research track at the University of Colorado.  She spent her Undergrad years as a Human Bio major at Stanford University, then worked for several years as a post-bac researcher at Stanford and a Clinical Trial Coordinator in the Psychosis research program at UCSF, before attending the University of Colorado. Tara’s research interests are in transitional age youth, early psychosis, autism and eating disorders. She may be headed into Child Psychiatry.

2025-2026 PGY-IV Research Track Residents

Johansen Amin, M.D., Ph.D.

Johansen completed his M.D., Ph.D. training at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. His doctoral studies in the Department of Cell and Molecular Pharmacology focused on synaptic physiology of NMDA receptors and their disease-associated mutations.