Maria Ferrara M.D. graduated in 2007 at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. She completed her residency in adult Psychiatry at the same University in 2012 and she has been working as full time psychiatrist in a community mental health center in Modena, Italy since then. She also obtained a Master Degree in Neuropharmacology in 2012. She is Vice President of HIV/AIDS Psychiatry Section for World Psychiatry Association and member of Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine Special Interest Group of HIV/AIDS.
As part of her education as resident in psychiatry, she attended the HIV Neurobehavioral Research Program (San Diego, California) as visiting scholar conducting a research about metabolic side effects of the combined use of antipsychotics and antiretrovirals. In 2012 she was granted for a research project on the correlation between neurocognitive skills and CNS penetration of antiretroviral therapy at the HIV metabolic Clinic in Modena.
She was selected and scholarship awarded to attend the first European psychiatric Association Summer School in “Comorbidity between mental & Physical Disorders” in 2012 and the European College of NeuroPsychopharmacology (ENCP) School of Neuropsychopharmacology, Oxford (UK) in 2013. She is now Post-Doc Associate at Yale University, conducting research within the STEP Project on First Episode Psychosis