Rachel A. Ross, MD, PhD
Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Assistant Director, Research Concentration Program of MGH/McLean Psychiatry Residency
Assistant Psychiatrist, Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders, MGH
Assistant Neuroscientist, Neurobiology of Fear Lab, McLean Hospital
​Assistant Neuroscientist, Lab of Bradford Lowell, BIDMC

Rachel A. Ross MD, PhD is an assistant neuroscientist in the Ressler lab, where she uses genetic engineering techniques in mice to study central neuro-circuitry controlling behavior involved in metabolism (ranging from feeding to fertility) and in stress response. Her interest is in top down control of motivational drives. She holds a BS in bioengineering from Cornell University, and received her MD and PhD as part of the MSTP at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY, focusing her research on hypothalamic nutrient sensing in relationship to obesity in the Rossetti and Schwartz labs. She completed residency training in adult psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital, after which she also did a post-doc in the Lowell lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to study the hypothalamic neurocircuitry involved in feeding behavior in mice. She is now an instructor at Harvard Medical School and the assistant director of the research concentration program at the MGH/McLean Adult Psychiatry Residency Training Program. She maintains a part-time clinic at the MGH Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders, where she also participates in clinical research translating her basic science work on hypothalamic neuropeptides to hormone biomarkers that may correlate with pathophysiology of anxiety and eating disorders. Her goal is to better understand the role that the brain plays in whole body behavior from fear to feeding. She has received awards form the NIH and Harvard Medical School, and is currently funded through the NIH KL2/Harvard Catalyst CMeRIT. ​