Lea is a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and holds a joint position with the VA Palo Alto MIRECC. She is Director of the Panlab personalized neuroscience lab, and the lab spans both Stanford and MIRECC sites. Her research programs are aimed at developing a neural circuit model of mental disorder, one that can be translated into practice in the real world. Given the immediate public need she focuses on depression and anxiety and accompanying conditions such as drug use. These conditions are being reconceptualized as disorders of large-scale human brain circuits that coordinate emotional and cognitive functions. Brain imaging, behavior and genetic data are integrated to characterize brain-circuit based phenotypes. Interventional studies test if these brain markers help guide and personalized treatment choices, and the mechanisms by which treatments work for one person and not another. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty she was foundation Professor of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry at the Sydney Medical School (2005-2013) and Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Sydney (1999-2004). During that time she was Director of the Sydney Brain Dynamics Center from 2001 to 2013. Her training was in psychology and in cognitive and affective neuroscience. Her PhD was awarded in 1996 and it was completed with a British Council scholarship for study at Oxford University.
Websites:
http://med.stanford.edu/williamslab.html
https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/leanne-williams?tab=bio