Pearl Chiu named Patricia Caldwell Faculty Fellow

19 Oct 2023

Pearl Chiu, professor in the Department of Psychology in the College of Science and in the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, has been awarded the Patricia Caldwell Faculty Fellowship by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors. Chiu is also a faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine.

The Patricia Caldwell Dean’s Faculty Fellowships were established in 2019 to enhance the national and international prominence of the College of Science. Caldwell, who earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics, established this fellowship to recognize faculty dedicated to extraordinary research, to recruit scholars with exceptional records of achievement, and/or to retain high-performing faculty members in any discipline or transdisciplinary area within the college.

Recipients hold the title of Patricia Caldwell Faculty Fellow for a period of three years.

A member of the Virginia Tech faculty since 2010, Chiu aims to understand how brain function and decision-making are affected in illnesses such as depression and addiction. She is a leader in computational psychiatry, using quantitative model-based approaches to answer fundamental questions about mechanisms of decision-making in mental health and illness. Chiu’s doctoral training was in clinical psychology, and a portion of her lab’s work focuses on developing neuroscience-informed behavioral treatments.

Chiu’s scholarly record is notable, with more than 30 publications in leading research journals and over 100 presentations at professional conferences. Her research has been featured in leading journals, such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) Psychiatry, and Nature Neuroscience, and she regularly contributes to major news outlets as an expert in her field. Chiu also has a demonstrated commitment to teaching and mentoring and was awarded the 2022 College of Science Outstanding Mentor Award.

Chiu’s research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 2008, she currently holds four active awards from the NIH and is a co- investigator on two additional grants. She provides regular service to the field through grant review panels including serving as a standing member of the NIH grant review panel examining the neural basis of psychopathology, addiction, and sleep disorders.

Before coming to Virginia Tech, Chiu spent four years at Baylor College of Medicine in the Department of Neuroscience, first as a research associate and then as assistant professor. She earned her bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and Ph.D. from Harvard University.

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