Uraina Clark facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Uraina Simone Clark
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| Alma mater | Boston University (PhD) |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai |
| Thesis | Facial emotion recognition in Parkinson's disease (2008) |
Dr. Uraina Simone Clark is an American neuroscientist. This means she is a scientist who studies the brain. She leads the Neuropsychology and Neuroimaging Laboratory at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Dr. Clark uses special brain scans called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). These scans help her understand how stress affects our brains and how we act. She has studied how unfair treatment, like discrimination, impacts the brain. Her research shows that social discrimination can make a part of the brain called the amygdala work harder. The amygdala helps us feel emotions.
Dr. Clark's Early Life and Learning
When she was in college, Dr. Clark worked in different science labs. This showed her how amazing science can be. It made her want to become a researcher and study the brain.
Her relative, Dr. Richard A. Smith, was a doctor. He helped make hospitals fair for everyone in the 1960s. Dr. Clark earned her PhD at Boston University. There, she studied how people with Parkinson's disease recognize faces and emotions.
She also worked as an intern at Brown University. During this time, she studied how stress early in life affects the brains of people with HIV.
Discoveries and Career
Dr. Clark studies how our brain works and how it affects our behavior. She has looked at how HIV infection and tough life experiences change the brain. In 2016, she received a special award called the Medical Research Council Suffrage Science award.
Dr. Clark has also researched how discrimination affects people's health. She used functional magnetic resonance imaging to see these effects in the brain. Her work showed that social discrimination makes the amygdala more active.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that some groups, like Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), were more likely to get very sick. Dr. Clark believes that science needs to use anti-racism approaches. This means creating new rules and ways to make sure everyone is treated fairly in science and healthcare.
In 2021, City & State NY included Dr. Clark in their "Life Sciences Power 50" list. This list celebrates scientists, business leaders, and investors who are helping New York State's science growth.
Selected Publications
Dr. Clark has written many scientific papers about her research. These papers share her discoveries with other scientists around the world.
