Mentor: Brant Hasler, PhD
Dr. Nicholas Harris is a pediatrician and adolescent medicine physician in training. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before moving to Nashville and completing his MD PhD at Vanderbilt University. His graduate school work focused on the neural circuitry of addiction-like behaviors in rodent models under the mentorship of Dr. Danny Winder. Upon moving to Pittsburgh, he completed his residency training in pediatrics before starting adolescent medicine fellowship. As a postdoctoral fellow in the IMPACT T32 program, Dr. Harris is working with Dr. Brant Hasler and Dr. Layla Banihashemi on better understanding the intersection of early life stress, sleep, and substance use. Through his research with Dr. Hasler and time with the Sleep T32 community, he has focused on understanding how proximate alcohol drinking impacts sleep on a non-drinking night through analysis of polysomnographic sleep. As his knowledge of sleep physiology deepens, his work with Dr. Banihashemi will build on this and apply it to a population impacted by childhood maltreatment and early life adversity. Overall, Dr. Harris’s career goal is to better understand the neuroscience of early life stress, sleep, and substance use in order to better treat patients who struggle with substance use as a result of their early life experiences.