Meet the Team

Riaz Shaik | Associate Scientist

Dr. Shaik is a clinical scientist with medical training from India, and a PhD in Bioinformatics from Rutgers University. He currently works as an Associate Scientist in the Motivational and Affective Psychopathologies (MAP) Lab, focusing on the identification of predictive biomarkers for the onset of substance use and psychotic symptoms, using EEG/ERP techniques. His research sits at the intersection of neurobiology, psychiatry, and computational science, with the goal of translating laboratory discoveries into practical tools for preventive psychiatry and clinical care. He is also overseeing all data acquisition in MAPlab, and providing training and mentorship to junior colleagues. Outside of his research, Dr. Shaik hikes and enjoys capturing nature’s beauty through photography—though his photos are often accompanied by a lighthearted disclaimer about their “rustic” quality. He also has a strong passion for languages and linguistics, delighting in exploring the structure and intricacies of different languages. This curiosity extends to his love for cultural cuisines, as he enjoys trying new foods and discovering the rich traditions behind them.

Email: riaz.shaik@mssm.edu

Tarik Bel-Bahar | Associate Scientist

Dr. Tarik Bel-Bahar is an experimental psychologist specializing in brain dynamics related to cognitive, affective, and motivational processing in substance use disorder and treatment. He earned his doctorate from the University of Oregon and has held postdoctoral roles at the University of California San Diego, Duke University, and the University of Michigan. Dr. Bel-Bahar’s work revolves around electroencephalography (EEG) with an emphasis on cognitive performance, emotional regulation, and altered states of consciousness. His current research investigates EEG-based predictive metrics in substance use disorder treatment, with a focus on neural oscillations, intrinsic brain networks, and reproducible analytic methods. Outside of his professional work, he enjoys yoga and music.

Email: tarik.bel-bahar@mssm.edu

Karmiella Ferster | Clinical Research Coordinator

Long Island native Karmiella Ferster graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio with a Bachelor’s degree in Developmental Psychology and a double minor in Creative Writing and Art Therapy. She worked with Dr. Yvette Harris’ research in self-efficacy, Theory of Mind, and creative thinking in school-aged minority parent-child dyads. In graduate school, Karmiella volunteered in Dr. Kimberly Noble’s lab, exploring EEG and MRI data on infants and cortisol data on adults, while continuing her interest in how parental self-efficacy can set the path for a child’s development. Karmiella received her Master’s degree in Developmental Psychology in 2021 from Teachers College, Columbia University. After graduation, Karmiella joined Dr. Parvaz’s lab. This experience continues to expand upon her interest in Theory of Mind but now in older populations, specifically in adults with psychosis. In her free time, Karmiella plays video games, creates art, and writes fiction.

Email: karmiella.ferster@mssm.edu

Rachel Heisler | Clinical Research Coordinator 

Rachel joined the MAP Lab in June of 2024 as a Clinical Research Coordinator. She graduated from Emory University with a Bachelor’s degree, double majoring in Psychology and Human Health. Rachel got her Masters of Public Health from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health with a certificate Health and Human Rights. Rachel’s previous work experience focuses on mental health and academic advocacy for children. When not in the lab, Rachel enjoys reading, walking, yoga, going to museums, traveling, trying new foods, going to Broadway shows, and watching Philadelphia sports teams (Go Birds).

Email: rachel.heisler@mssm.edu

Sam Edwards | Clinical Research Coordinator 

Sam joined the MAP lab in November of 2024. He graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelors of Science in psychology and minors in integrative neuroscience and philosophy. Sam’s past research focused on the use of fMRI data analysis to identify early visual processing differences found with schizophrenia. He is primarily interested in revealing the underlying neural mechanisms that drive behavioral differences in psychosis. Sam ultimately hopes to advance the field of precision medicine for mental disorders. Outside of the lab, he is a classical pianist, an avid blacksmith, and passionate about the outdoors.

Email: sam.edwards@mssm.edu

Anantha Ramakrishnan | Postdoctoral Researcher

Ananth is a PhD student of Bioinformatics at Rutgers University, and is working on his dissertation in MAPlab under Dr. Parvaz’s supervision. His work focuses on novel applications of computational models of reinforcement learning to examine reward-related learning in adolescents and adults, and changes associated with substance use. He is also a seasoned data architect and is involved in the structuring of data systems for the lab. He received his Master’s degree in mathematics, computer applications, and finance management.

Outside of the lab, Ananth is a full-time data management consultant focusing on Health data integration, organization, advanced data analytics, and data-driven digital health and wellness. Early years at work, Ananth applied and programmed advanced mathematical models to solve critical industry problems. During his master’s, Ananth has worked under the mentorship of Dr. M.A Gopalan on number theory. He has published works on applying concepts of Vedic mathematics, (Brahma Gupta Lemmas) in solving higher order Diophantine Equations, a modified version of Fermat’s Last Theorem and Pythagorean Triangles. Ananth enjoys traveling and coaches his daughter’s soccer team in his free time.

Email: anantha.ramakrishnan@mssm.edu

Faith Adams | PhD Student

Faith is a third-year PhD candidate in Mount Sinai’s Neuroscience PhD program. Faith is interested in characterizing potential phenotypes associated with alcohol initiation and escalation in adolescents. Her current work uses novel data integration approaches to optimally analyze a multitude of plausible risk factors of early alcohol use from environmental, clinical, individual and neurobehavioral domains. Outside of lab, Faith is involved in organizations that she is passionate about like Mount Sinai’s Health Policy Program, and the National Science Policy Network. Through these organizations and her research, she hopes that she will be prepared to pursue a career in science policy where she can use her expertise to contribute to evidence-based policies. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, powerlifting, reading crime/thriller novels, binge watching Netflix shows. 

Email: faith.adams@icahn.mssm.edu 

Nancy Zhang | PhD Student  

Nancy is a second year PhD student in Biomedical Sciences with a training area in artificial intelligence and emerging technologies (AIET) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She received her BS degree in Mathematics and Statistics from UCLA in 2023. She has done research on various cross-disciplinary fields including the application of deep learning in materials science engineering, computer vision, bioinformatics, and genomics. She is passionate about bringing AI to the field of psychiatry and healthcare to advance our understanding and enhance the quality of healthcare technologies. In the lab, she mainly works on developing computational models for predicting interventional and clinical outcomes across substance use disorders with multimodal data. In her free time, she enjoys exploring New York City, playing ukulele and piano, and creating music.

Email: nancy.zhang@icahn.mssm.edu

Kaesha Bowers  | Post-Graduate Volunteer

Kaesha joined MAP Lab in November 2023 as a Master’s in Clinical Research student working on her thesis. At MAP Lab, she is studying the interactions of HIV in male methamphetamine users. Kaesha is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor at a private practice where she practices CBT. She has been practicing for over 10 years, and continues to see clients for individual, couples, and family therapy/counseling. While attending Mount Sinai, Kaesha has been a teacher’s assistant for a Qualitative Research course. She assists in the facilitation of focus groups for older adults with coronary artery disease. As well, she coordinates a qualitative research project pertaining to a specific tool used to assess substance use in prenatal and postpartum women. Kaesha’s future endeavors is to achieve further education in research within the field of neuroscience and pathology. When not studying or working, Kaesha enjoys watching cartoons, playing video games, and learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Email: kaesha.bowers@icahn.mssm.edu

Karan Lingineni  | MS Student

Karan is a first-year MS candidate in Mount Sinai’s Clinical Research program and a Research Assistant planning to do his thesis in Parvaz Lab. Additionally, he is currently a Cloud Architect at Kyndryl (previously IBM Global Technology Services). Prior to Mount Sinai, he received BA degrees in Computer Science and Neurobiology from UC Berkeley in 2022. His past career experiences and future research motivations lie in the growing convergence of cloud computing and machine learning with medical informatics, drug discovery, and whole-slide image classification. Karan previously held positions at Roche Pharmaceuticals, developing non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tumor classification CV pipelines, and Amazon, creating Graph Neural Network MVPs for client institutions attempting research in preventing chemotherapeutic side effects based on a patient’s multi-omics data. Karan’s long-term goal is to apply for the upcoming MD/PhD cycle and develop his fundamental medical knowledge further to become a more impactful innovator/researcher within bio-design. Outside of school and work, Karan enjoys playing guitar, listening to classic rock, and keeping up with the NBA season in his free time.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kling111/

Armaan Dullat  | Research Assistant  

Armaan joined the MAP Lab as a volunteer in June 2024. He is a sophomore in a BS/MD program with The College of New Jersey and New Jersey Medical School currently pursuing a Bachelor’s of Science in Chemistry. Armaan’s previous research experiences included exploring the specificity of metalloenzymes with alternative substrates and properties not before seen in scientific literature and modeling chemical interactions between various species to better understand the mechanisms of protein tyrosine phosphatases. He is taking a gap year to gain research and tutoring experience, in addition to self-studying languages. Armaan enjoys cooking, hiking, and traveling in his free time.

Email: armaan.dullat@mssm.edu

Areeb Siddiqui | Undergrad Volunteer 

Areeb Siddiqui joined MAP lab as volunteer researcher in September 2023. He is currently a sophomore pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology with a concentration in Neuroscience at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, with aspirations of entering an MD program. Areeb’s previous research involves the data collection of microbes within the New York City transit system in order to create high-resolution maps of the genetic dynamics of the subway system. He also has previous experience as a pharmacy technician. Areeb is currently a volunteer tutor at Learn it Together, an educational nonprofit focused on bridging academic gaps for underprivileged students. In his free time, he enjoys playing basketball and football.

Email: areeb.siddiqui@mssm.edu 

Jackie Curtin  | Undergrad Volunteer  

Jackie joined MAP Lab in May 2024. She is a sophomore studying Applied Psychology at New York University. She is on the premed track and hopes to pursue an MD with plans to become a psychiatrist. MAP lab will be Jackie’s first experience with research. At MAP lab she will help recruit participants for a study on cue-reactivity in people seeking treatment for Methamphetamine Use Disorder. In her free time, Jackie enjoys playing video games, trying new food, and crafting.

Email: jacqueline.curtin@mssm.edu

Ty Bell | High School Volunteer  

Ty joined the MAP Lab as a volunteer in July 2024. He is currently a rising senior at Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics and a part of CEYE’s Lloyd Sherman Scholar Program at Mount Sinai. In this program Ty took coursework covering college level biochemistry, cellular biology and molecular biology and which ultimately led to his research placement at the MAP Lab from the summer to end of senior year. Ty wishes to pursue the pre-med track with the end goal of becoming a psychiatrist. In the MAP lab, Ty has researched many different instruments used in clinical research, compiled locations of different mental health providers throughout New York City and presented a poster of his research covering the effects of COVID-19 on media use in different age groups at the Museum of Natural History. Ty in his free time also enjoys listening to music, running, and trying new foods.

Email: ty.bell@mssm.edu

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ty-bell-5732822b7/