Lief Fenno, MD, PhD

Clinical Biography

Lief Fenno, MD, PhD, is a board-certified psychiatrist in UT Health Austin’s Adult Psychiatry Clinic. He specializes in the medical management of addiction, with a focus on the use of medication-assisted treatment (MAT), including buprenorphine and methadone, in treating opioid use disorder. Additionally, Dr. Fenno is an assistant professor in both the Dell Medical School Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and College of Natural Sciences’ Department of Neurology at The University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Fenno earned his bachelor’s degree in neurobiology from Harvard University and both his medical degree and his doctorate in neuroscience from Stanford University. He completed a residency in adult psychiatry at Stanford Health Care and a fellowship is bioengineering at Stanford University.

Dr. Fenno directs a laboratory focused on expanding the use of novel molecular and viral approaches, with the objective of precisely establishing links between neuron circuitry and behavior. Leveraging his strengths in neuroscience research and bioengineering, his scientific goal is to design, construct, validate, and apply novel molecular and viral tools to understand the brain in health and disease for the benefit of diverse patient populations. His specific research interests include the development and application of novel molecular tools that enable precision manipulation of targeted neuron populations in awake, behaving subjects.