Dr. David Carreon graduated from UCLA where he studied Civil Engineering where he developed a love for science working on mechanically probing the rigidity of single cells. He was also interested in medical service, and founded a non-profit that works to connect students wanting to help with the poor who need it in Mexico. While continuing his education at Stanford School of Medicine, he came across an incredible startup, anti-poverty nonprofit out of Stanford GSB called Nuru International. He decided to take a leave of absence and worked for Nuru in Kenya, leading the healthcare team in rolling out efficient interventions like community health workers and vaccination campaigns. Upon returning to medical school, he realized how interconnected the world was and, for better or worse, how much the rest of the world looked to the United States as an example. He realized the biggest impact he could make was to help get things right at home.

Dr. Carreon decided to study neuroscience in medical school to prepare for his future career as a psychiatrist, and found a mentor Amit Etkin, with whom he worked from 2012 – 2018. After much toil and tribulation (as is normally the way of it), he graduated medical school and continued into psychiatry residency at Stanford. He continued to explore questions of human choice clinically and experimentally.

Research
Dr. Carreon’s research interests have been focused on questions of cognitive control. His first project with the Etkin lab was using brains stimulation (transcranial magnetic stimulation, TMS) to try to modify inhibition control in healthy subjects. Additionally, Dr. Carreon looked at the role of executive function in mental illness via meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies. He is currently working on analyzing objective measures of cognition in post-war mental illness (including PTSD, TBI and depression) and studying how these measures relate to subjective symptoms and neurological measurements. 

Other Interests
Dr. Carreon’s interests are quite broad. He likes to read, write, discuss and debate. Philosophy, faith and science tend to be his favorite topics, but he’s pretty happy to talk about anything. His recent interests have included neuroscience, psychology, economics (particularly in behavior and healthcare), statistics and history (especially of science and Christianity). Dr. Carreon loves teaching, particularly neuroscience, and has spoken dozens of times to over 9,000 people. 

This event is co-sponsored with The Veritas Forum.