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Ria Malhotra

Ria Malhotra is a graduate of  the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education at the City College of New York. Ria was first introduced to clinical research at The Institute for Family Health Harlem Family Health Center branch. There, she conducted a community project in which she surveyed patients on previous incarceration along with their chronic health problems, including drug abuse. Both through the research project and clinical experience, Ria discovered that drug abuse disproportionately affects people of low socioeconomic status and color. This sparked her interest in culturally sensitive and tailored interventions for drug abuse as well as the different decision-making processes people use to make drug-taking decisions even when negative consequences are known. Ria worked under the mentorship of Dr. Christine Sheffer on a feasibility study of trans magnetic stimulation of the pre-frontal cortex to examine any changes in the effectiveness of current tobacco interventions. She conducted a pilot study on delay discounting during the TRACC program.