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Josiah Leong, PhD, serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Medical Education for Alice L. Walton School of Medicine with Expertise in Neuroscience and Statistics. In this role, he teaches in the nervous system course and the Research thread. Dr. Leong also mentors medical student research projects and consults experimental design and statistical analysis for student and faculty projects. He is Principal Investigator of the REGAIN Lab, where students can conduct behavioral and psychophysiological studies. His research focuses on human neuroscience, adolescent brain development, and substance use disorders.
About
Career Highlights:
Assistant Professor of Psychological Science, University of Arkansas
Doctoral Researcher, Stanford University Symbiotic Project on Affective Neuroscience
Staff Researcher, University of California, San Francisco Memory and Aging Center
Education:
Postdoctoral Fellowship: Indiana University
PhD in Psychology: Stanford University
BA in Psychology: University of California, Berkeley
Honors & Awards:
Institute for Integrative & Innovative Research (I3R) Watershed Grants ($370,000, 2026)
Arkansas Biosciences Institute (ABI) Grants ($50,000, 2022; $150,000, 2023)
University of Arkansas Teaching Improvement Grant (2021)
Indiana University Pervasive Technology Institute Fellowship (2019)
Kavli Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience Fellowship (2018)
Stanford Centennial Teaching Assistant Award (2018)
Stanford Center at Peking University Predoctoral Fellowship (2018)
NIMH Affective Science Predoctoral Training Fellowship (2014-2016)
Stanford Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging Seed Grant (2013)
American Psychological Association (APA) Summer Science Institute Fellow (2007)
Boards, Advisory Committees, and Professional Memberships:
Member, Association for Psychological Science, Social & Affective Neuroscience Society, Society for Neuroeconomics, Society for Neuroscience
Reviewer, Brain Structure and Function, Cerebral Cortex, Human Brain Mapping, Imaging Neuroscience, Journal of Neuroscience, Neurocase, Neurology: Genetics, Psychophysiology, Science Advances, Scientific Data, Scientific Reports, Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience
Research Focus and Interests:
Structural and functional neuroimaging of reward circuitry
Adolescent brain development
Predicting substance use onset, misuse, and relapse
Neuroeconomics and neuroforecasting
Research: