Professor and Vice Chair of Research, Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences, UVA

Dr. Payne received her B.S. in biology at Davidson College in Davidson, NC and her M.D. from Washington University Medical School in St. Louis, MO. She completed her residency in psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins Hospital where she served as chief resident during her last year. Dr. Payne then completed a fellowship in mood disorders through the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program at the NIMH. Dr. Payne joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2003 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2011. During her time at Johns Hopkins Dr. Payne founded and directed the Women’s Mood Disorders Center which, in addition to providing outstanding clinical care for women with mood disorders, served as a research center conducting research into the genetic, biological, and environmental factors involved in postpartum depression. There, she and her colleagues identified two epigenetic biomarkers of postpartum depression and conducted research on the best management practices for psychiatric illness during pregnancy. In 2021, Dr. Payne moved to the University of Virginia where she is serving as the Vice Chair of Research in the Psychiatry Department with a goal of expanding both her own and the department’s research programs. At UVA, she has established the Reproductive Psychiatry Research Program which is studying psychiatric disorders triggered by times of hormonal change and the Perinatal Mental Health clinic which is providing psychiatric care to pregnant and postpartum women.  Her research is supported by the NIMH, the DOD the UVA Brain Institute and the UVA Vivian Pinn Scholar Program.