His primary academic interest include clinical, education and research in treatment-resistant psychiatric disorders especially mood disorders and PTSD and suicide prevention. He is interested in the mechanistic understanding at the environment-genomic interface and brain stimulation interventions of these disorders. He did medical school at Cairo University (Egypt); psychiatry residency and postgraduate fellowship at the University of South Alabama and Yale University; and a research fellowship at both Durham VA and Duke University. He was on the faculty at Duke University before moving to Augusta.