Dana Katsoty

Kalaniyot Fellow

Israeli University: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Columbia Affiliation: Department of Psychiatry

Faculty Host: Prof. Yuval Neria

Research Topic: Longitudinal Amygdala Development Following Childhood Trauma: A Big Data Study of Resilience and Vulnerability

Dana Katsoty is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University whose research focuses on trauma, resilience, and mental health across development. She completed her Ph.D. with honors in the Department of Psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her doctoral research, conducted with Prof. Ariel Knafo-Noam, examined mental health in the context of continuous trauma, with a focus on predictive models and risk factors for psychopathology following the October 7th attack. She also earned her M.A. in Clinical and Educational Child Psychology with honors from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Dana was awarded the Allan Bronfman Prize for Excellence for her doctoral dissertation and received the Haruv Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 2025, she joined the laboratory of Prof. Yuval Neria at Columbia University, where she investigates how childhood adversity, including trauma exposure and economic hardship, effect mental health trajectories and brain development.