Sage E. Hawn, PhD, Receives Early Career Investigator Award

Sage E. Hawn, PhD, a second-year T32 postdoctoral fellow at the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and BUSM’s department of psychiatry is the recipient of the 2022 Donald F. Klein Early Career Investigator Award from the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA).

This award honors an early career investigator for the best original research paper on neurobiology, psychopharmacology, psychosocial treatments, or experimental psychopathology of anxiety disorders and depression.

The award is named for Donald F. Klein, MD (1928-2019), who revolutionized psychiatric thinking through his discovery in the early 1960s that imipramine, a recently developed psychotropic medication, was effective in blocking panic attacks.

“I am honored to receive this award and look forward to sharing my work and hearing about the work of my impressive colleagues in the field this year at ADAA.  I am particularly excited to share this experience in person following two long years of remote work!  I am ever grateful to my graduate and postdoctoral mentors, as I stand on the shoulders of giants. I am inspired to join the impressive group of previous awardees.”

Hawn’s mentor is Erika Wolf, PhD, and her secondary mentors include Drs. Mark Miller and Mark Logue. Hawn received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University under the mentorship of Ananda Amstadter, PhD at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, where she conducted her F31-funded research. Her translational program of research integrates multiple modalities to better understand the intersection of biological (e.g., genomic) and psychosocial factors that influence PTSD and comorbid pathologies. Her goal is to identify risk and protective factors that may predispose individuals to, or buffer against, trauma exposure and subsequent mental and physical health outcomes in order to inform early and integrative intervention efforts.

The ADAA works to prevent, treat and cure anxiety disorders and depression.