Focus on Students With Martine Lamy, PhD

In her 26 years as a student, Martine Lamy, PhD, has won plenty of awards—and she’s not done yet. She’ll receive one last honor Saturday, May 18, at the College of Medicine Honors Day: the first Warren Liang Award for Psychiatry Excellence. The award honoring Liang, a professor emeritus in the psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience department and director of psychiatry residency training from 1994-2008, will go annually to an outstanding senior medical student.

Lamy, a postdoctoral assistant in the Center for Imaging Research and fourth-year medical student, slid into a booth in the CARE/Crawley Atrium last week and answered some questions about her busy life in and out of the College of Medicine’s Physician-Scientist Training Program (MD/PhD).

What is your background?

I grew up in Cincinnati, attended Anderson High School and went to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where I majored in brain and cognitive sciences with a minor in psycholinguistics. I came back here in 2004 for the MD/PhD program and received my PhD in 2009. I’ll receive my MD on Honors Day.

What are your plans after graduation?

I’m going to be doing a Triple Board residency in pediatrics, psychiatry and child and adolescent Psychiatry at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. It’s a five-year program that qualifies you for board certification in all three of those specialties. I’m looking forward to not being in school!

What sparked your interest in psychiatry and neuroscience?

I was always interested in the brain since a summer program in high school on neuroscience research. And when I was in college at MIT, people didn’t work in the library for their on-campus jobs—they worked in research labs. So I worked on various neuroscience and psychology related topics, including infant cognition and avian (bird) cognition, and then I did some studies of elderly patients working with memory. I found that I really loved research, but I also loved working with patients. When I found out about the MD/PhD program, I thought that was perfect because I couldn’t make up my mind which way I wanted to go.

Do you have time for hobbies?

I do a lot of yoga. Also, I "rescued” a dog about two years ago, and she has a lot of needs—perfect for a psychiatry person. I spend lots of time with family—I have a huge family, and they’re all in Cincinnati—and my husband and I are house-hunting.

Speaking of family: Any relation to the retired Canadian ballerina Martine Lamy?

No, but my mom was a ballerina for Cincinnati Ballet, and then in New York City and Europe. I took ballet from UC’s College-Conservatory of Music until college.