Soham Rej completed medical school (2009) and psychiatry residency at McGill (2014), followed by a geriatric psychiatry clinical and research fellowship at the University of Toronto (2017). He is a Geriatric Psychiatrist and Assistant Professor at the Jewish General Hospital/Lady Davis Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Canada since 2017.
As of Dec 2022, he has 135 peer-reviewed publications, $2.1M in peer-reviewed research funding (CIHR, FRQS, etc.) and $2.1M in charitable, corporate, and governmental funding. He has mentored more than 80 graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, psychiatry residents, and other trainees.
Soham’s Geri-PARTy lab has 12-15 full-time staff, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate students and investigates clinical trials to improve mood, anxiety, and cognitive disorders in older adults, with three foci:
- Mind-body Interventions (Mindfulness, various forms of Meditation, Tai Chi, Yoga, Exercise, Health Education)
- Technology-Assisted Behavioral Interventions with a Human Touch (Virtual Reality, Zoom, Telehealth, Robots), working closely with Community Partners
- Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy (Ketamine, Psilocybin)
Perhaps of particular relevance to Mind and Life, is Soham’s growing collaboration with neuroscientists, social scientists, and monastics/meditators to 1) examine the phenomenology and biology of deep meditative/contemplative states and 2) encourage a deep, growing dialogue between deep contemplative practitioners and scientists.
