Ran Barzilay

Ran is a physician-scientist and child and adolescent psychiatrist whose work centers on understanding how stress shapes brain development and mental health in youth. He began his scientific training in molecular neuroscience, studying neuronal development using stem cell models, and later moved into translational research examining gene by environment interactions in animal models of neuropsychiatric disorders.
During his clinical training in child and adolescent psychiatry beginning in 2012, Ran’s research became increasingly informed by clinical experience. His work shifted toward stress-related psychopathology and suicide, with a focus on the biological processes linking environmental exposures to psychiatric outcomes.
In 2017, Ran joined the Lifespan Brain Institute at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania, where he established the Barzi Lab. The lab’s mission is to reduce youth mental health burden by identifying mechanisms of risk and resilience across development. Leveraging large, deeply phenotyped human datasets, the lab integrates environmental, genetic, epigenetic, immune, and neurocognitive data to understand why some children exposed to stress develop serious psychiatric conditions while others do not.
Recent work from the lab spans clinically and societally relevant questions, including digital media exposure and adolescent mental health, trajectories of depression across the COVID-19 pandemic, and multimodal prediction of suicide risk. Ran continues to practice as a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, with a long-term goal of translating this research into improved prevention and intervention strategies for youth.