Wei-li Chang

Dr. Chang leads a translational research group that aims to improve mental health by understanding the mechanisms though which aversive life experiences, such as early life adversity, trauma, and chronic stress, increase the risk for psychiatric symptoms. Her lab studies neural circuits across species, using molecular tools in model systems as well as clinical trials in patient populations to investigate how brain plasticity across the lifespan can be both a source of psychiatric vulnerability and a target for potential therapeutics. She has mentored several trainees who have gone on to successful careers in science and medicine. Dr. Chang also runs a clinical practice where she specializes in treating disorders that motivate her research: depression, anxiety, PTSD, and related disorders. Dr. Chang is originally from Houston, Texas, and received her undergraduate degree in the Program in Human Biology at Stanford University. She then completed her MD and PhD in Neuroscience at the University of California San Diego, followed by psychiatric residency training and a postdoctoral research fellowship at Columbia University, the New York State Psychiatric Institute, and New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. Outside of conducting research on a US National Institutes of Health Career Development Award at Columbia, she remained clinically active in underserved settings, working as a supervising psychiatrist in the New York Presbyterian-Columbia Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program and the Mobile Crisis Service. She has also provided mental health care as part of Correctional Health Services within the New York City jail system on Rikers Island. She joined CAMH and the University of Toronto as a clinician investigator in Spring 2026.

Appointments

Columbia University Department of Psychiatry – Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry

Grants

7/2020 – 3/2026 NIMH Career Development Award: K08MH122893 Study Title: Early life stress effects on ventral hippocampal microcircuitry during emotional behaviors Role: PI

7/2023 – 9/2026 Hope for Depression Research Foundation Study title: Novel mechanisms of antidepressant action Role: Co-Investigator

Recent Publications

Santiago A, Castello-Saval J, Nguyen PT, Chung H, Levitz J, Luna VM, Hen R, Chang WL*. (2026) Effects of electroconvulsive shock on the function, circuitry, and transcriptome of dentate gyrus granule neurons. Neuropsychopharmacol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-026-02345-x

Chang WL*, Tegang K, Samuels BA, Saxe M, Wichmann J, David DJ, Mendez David I, Augustin A, Fischer H, Golling S, Lamerz J, Roth D, Graf M, Santarelli L, Jagasia R, Hen R. (2025) Pharmacological enhancement of adult hippocampal neurogenesis improves pattern separation in young and aged male mice. Biol Psychiatry Glob Open Sci. 5(2), 100419. PMCID: PMC11741898

Chang WL & Hen R. (2024) Adult neurogenesis, context encoding, and pattern separation: A pathway for treating overgeneralization. Adv Neurobiol, 38: 163-93. PMID: 39008016 [Review]

Danzig A, Novick AM, Chang WL, Ross DA. (2024) From Social Isolation to Social Justice: The Neuroscience of Solitary Confinement. Biol Psychiatry, 95(7):e13-e15. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2024.01.017