Dr. Liisa Galea is a senior scientist and the inaugural womenmind Treliving Family Chair in Women’s Mental Health, and she also leads the Women’s Health Research Cluster at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).
Dr. Galea comes to CAMH after being a professor at University of British Columbia. Her PhD in neuroscience (Western University) was followed by postdoctoral training at the Rockefeller University. She was a distinguished university scholar, NSERC Discovery Accelerator Award holder (2x), a fellow at International Behavioral Neuroscience Society, Mortyn Jones Prize, and the Vancouver YWCA Women of Distinction award winner. She is the principal editor of Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, the President of Organization for the Study of Sex Differences and co-Vice-President of Canadian Organisation for Sex and Gender Research. She serves on advisory boards, editorial boards, and peer review panels internationally and nationally. Dr. Galea is a tireless advocate for women’s health research and for sex and gender-based analyses to improve mental health for all.
Areas of Research
Although sex differences exist in many diseases, research targeting sex as a factor in brain health is scarce. Dr. Galea’s research is vital in filling this knowledge gap, specifically in understanding how sex, stress, and hormones influence neuroplasticity. Dr. Galea is a world-renowned expert in sex hormone influences on brain and behaviour in both health and disease states, with a focus on dementia and stress-related psychiatric disorders. Her preclinical work is essential for developing tailored treatments for brain disease in both women and men.
Her research reveals novel insight into the mechanisms by which pregnancy impacts risk for psychiatric disorders in the short term and the trajectory of cognitive ageing in the long term. Her work targets diseases that show greater prevalence in women, such as Alzheimer’s disease and depression.
Click here to visit the Galea Lab website to learn more about Dr. Galea’s work
Publications
View Dr. Galea’s publications on https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=Q--hI3oAAAAJ&hl=en