Our Faculty and Staff

We are particularly proud of the people who make up the faculty and staff of the M.S. Program in Clinical Psychopharmacology. The use of a distance format has allowed us to recruit on the basis of expertise and reputation rather than geographic location. Our faculty include nationally recognized experts in their fields of study.

Course Instructors
Expert Presenters

Course Instructors

Andre K. Ragnauth, Ph.D. received his Ph.D. from the City University of New York (Neuropsychology Program) following training in the Opioid Pharmacology Laboratory of Dr. Richard J. Bodnar, Queens College, and the Neurobiology of Behavior Laboratory of Dr. Donald W. Pfaff, Rockefeller University. His research has involved detailed microinjection studies examining the synergistic interactions between dopamine and opioid responding neurons in various midbrain and forebrain structures, including the nucleus accumbens and the ventral tegmental area. Studies included neuroanatomical microsurgery and cannulae placements and correlation of various regions with activity. In parallel, at the Rockefeller University, he carried out an extensive behavioral screen of the pre-proenkephalin knockout mouse, one of the earliest opioid transgenic mice. He then completed a 4 year post-doctoral fellowship at the Rockefeller University studying both biophysical activity, single-cell recordings, in oxytocin-responding neurons of the ventromedial hypothalamus, and behavior in a semi-natural environment, studies which were carried out in oxytocin knockout mice, a potential animal model for the study of Autism. Following this, Dr. Ragnauth was asked to set up a Behavioral Phenotyping Core facility for Mt. Sinai School of Medicine where he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry. Presently, he is an Assistant Medical Professor at the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education, at City College, where his laboratory studies the molecular genetic neural pathways underlying drugs of abuse and obesity. In 2007, he was part of a consortium which received a 5 year award from the National Center for Complementary and Alternate Medicine, NIH, to establish its first Center of Excellence to study the effectiveness of grapeseed extracts as a possible treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease. He also maintains a relationship with the James J. Peters VA Medical Center, Bronx, NY, where he advises on matters related to animal models of psychiatric disorders, an affiliation of particular interest to Dr. Ragnauth, a former US Army veteran himself.

Tim Duke, MD, Psy.D. received his Psy.D in Clinical Psychology from Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in 1994. He completed his psychology internship at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, HI in 1992. He was enrolled in the Department of Defense Psychopharmacology Demonstration Project as a Psychopharmacology Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC. He received independent prescribing privileges in the Department of Defense (1998) while stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. During his career, he has served as associate professor for Walden University in their Doctorate of Psychology program and was a subject matter expert for the Psychopharmacology Exam for Psychologists (PEP). In August of 2006, Dr. Duke obtained his Doctor of Medicine degree from Medical University of Americas in Nevis, West Indies. He is currently a 2nd year Family Medicine Resident at Baton Rouge General Medical Center in Baton Rouge, La.