Radovic Appointed As New Assistant Dean
https://www.pediatrics.pitt.edu/news/radovic-appointed-new-assistant-dean
Pitt Pediatrics congratulates Ana Radovic, MD, MSc, on recently being named the new Assistant Dean for Medical Student Research at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The office of Medical Student Research encompasses a number of programs for medical students to develop summer research projects, longitudinal studies, as well as resources to assist in finding funding for prematriculants.
Radovic, in addition to her new Assistant Dean appointment, is also an Associate Professor of Pediatrics in our Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine (AYA). She completed her undergraduate and medical school at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and performed her pediatrics residency and AYA fellowship here, at the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC. During that time, she obtained a Master’s Degree in Clinical Science, also at the University of Pittsburgh.
Aside from her administrative roles, Radovic focuses her research primarily on how to use technology to improve mental health services for adolescents with symptoms of depression or anxiety. She has studied primary care provider attitudes toward approaching shared decision making with parents; the use of electronic order sets and screening decision aids to improve the integration of behavioral health services in primary care settings; and the impacts of social media and technology use in depressed adolescents and their parents.
Through this research, Radovic and her team developed a website intervention for teens with symptoms of depression or anxiety - sova.pitt.edu - which aims to allow adolescents to anonymously share their stories in a safe space, counteract negative attitudes toward treatment, and provide opportunities for social support.
More recently, Radovic and a cross-disciplinary team from other universities and small businesses were awarded an SBIR grant from National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to investigate the use of passive sensing to understand whether this method may be used in future interventions to predict symptoms of depression in adolescents. Radovic has been funded by an institutional career development award, the PCOR K12 award, to develop training in human computer interaction and stakeholder engagement.
In 2020, she completed a K23 early career investigator award from NIMH. She is a core faculty member of the University of Pittsburgh Center for Behavioral Health, Media, and Technology and a center investigator and co-leader of stakeholder engagement for the ALACRITY-funded Enhancing Treatment and Utilization for Depression and Emergent Suicidality in Pediatric Primary Care study (etudes.pitt.edu) in collaboration with PITT Department of Psychiatry.
Join us in celebrating Radovic on this wonderful career advancement.