Dr. Shaunna Clark, PhD
Associate Professor
Contact
Psychiatry
8441 John Sharp Pkwy, Room 1410
Bryan,
TX
77807
slclark@tamu.edu
Phone: 979.436.0179
Education and Training
- University of California Berkeley, BA Statistics, 2003
- University of California Los Angeles, MA Advanced Quantitative Methods, 2004
- University of California Los Angeles, PhD Advanced Quantitative Methods, 2010
Research Interests
- Dr. Clark’s research seeks to understand how biological and environmental factors shape psychiatric disorders. Specifically, the lab investigates the role of epigenetics in the etiology of psychiatric disorders and identifying (epi)genetic biomarkers. Historically, the lab has focused on alcohol use disorder and this remains a primary outcome of interest. However, alcohol use disorder is highly comorbid with other psychiatric disorders and adversities. As such, the lab has expanded its focus to include other substances of abuse, depression and anxiety along with other personal exposures such as childhood trauma and growing up in neighborhood disadvantage. We approach our research questions using a multidisciplinary perspective that involves utilizing cutting-edge methods and techniques from psychiatry, epigenetics, statistics and bioinformatics. This line of research will eventually lead to the improvement of diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders.
Representative Publications
Current Projects
- Conduct a single-nuclei sequencing study of the human brain transcriptome in multiple brain regions to better understand cell-type specific gene expression changes associated with alcohol use disorder.
- Evaluate DNA methylation alterations as one pathway through which neighborhood disadvantage leads to externalizing behaviors in youth.
- Examine the role of DNA methylation in alcohol dependence using human post-mortem tissue samples from multiple brain regions
- Identify DNA methylation biomarkers of alcohol and related health effects in peripheral tissues using machine learning techniques.
- Develop statistical methods and data analysis pipelines for longitudinal methylomic studies of behavior