Rene L. Olvera, M.D., MPH

Dr. Olvera MD, MPH graduated from Harvard University with a major in Biology. He completed his medical degree and his psychiatry residency training at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. He then completed a Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship at UTHSCSA. In 1995 he joined the faculty in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. In 1996 Dr. Olvera received a Faculty Development Award from the Department of Health and Resource Service Administration and the UTHSCSA Hispanic Center of Excellence. This award allowed Dr. Olvera to obtain a Masters Degree in Public Health from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health - San Antonio campus, in 1999.

Dr. Olvera divides his time between research, clinical practice and teaching. His primary research interest is in studying mood and impulse control disorders in particular, Bipolar Disorder, Conduct Disorder, Major Depression, and Aggression. Dr. Olvera has an interest in the clinical, biological, and phenomenological research of mood instability. His primary focus is on integrating the clinical expression of mood disorders with potential biomarkers of risk ascertained by neuroimaging, cognitive testing, and genetics. He recently completed a National Institute of Mental Health K-award “MRI Study of Impulse & Mood Disorders in Youth Offenders”, and is a collaborator on a number of nationally funded research projects with a focus on pediatric mood disorders. Dr. Olvera is the author of numerous peer reviewed articles on bipolar disorder, depression, and impulse control disorders. He has been an invited speaker on a local, state and national level.

Dr. Olvera is actively involved in the training of the next-generation of physicians and psychiatrists through his teaching and supervision of medical students, psychiatry, and child psychiatry residents. He is the recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award for Child Psychiatry on a number of occasions and is the current Regional Academic Health Center Psychiatry Clerkship Director.

Dr. Olvera has been appointed to the appointed to the Texas Juvenile Justice Board, which combines the former Texas Youth Commission and Texas Juvenile Probation Commission to create a unified juvenile justice agency to work in coordination with other state and county offices to produce positive outcomes for youths, their families and communities.