Neuroscientist / Mental health advocate / Professor

Dr. Xiaosi Gu is one of the foremost researchers in the nascent area of computational psychiatry. Her research examines the neural and computational mechanisms underlying human beliefs, decision making, and social interaction in both health and disease, through a synthesis of neuroscientific, cognitive, and behavioral approaches. Dr. Gu received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) and postdoctoral training in computational psychiatry at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London. During her time in London, she founded the world’s first training course on computational psychiatry. Before re-joining Mount Sinai, Dr. Gu held faculty positions at the University of Texas, Dallas and UT Southwestern Medical Center. She has published widely in high impact journals and serves as a frequent reviewer for the NIH, NSF, the Wellcome Trust (UK), MRC (UK), DFG (Germany), and research agencies all over the world. Dr. Gu is also an Editor-in-Chief for the new journal Computational Psychiatry. Beyond her scientific work, Dr. Gu is an avid advocate for raising public awareness in mental health and increasing diversity in computational psychiatry research. She frequently speaks at public engagement events including a 2018 Tedx conference. In 2020, she also established the first list of computational psychiatry researchers of color which aims to increase speaker and candidate diversity for conferences and recruitments. She is currently an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience and the Founding Director of the Center for Computational Psychiatry at ISMMS.