Octavio Choi, MD, PhD

As detailed in my CV, my clinical experience and extensive formal training qualify me as an expert in assessing the relevance and validity of neurological findings in forensic settings. To briefly state my professional qualifications:

I am currently Clinical Associate Professor in the Psychiatry department at Stanford University, and founding director for the Stanford Forensic Fellowship program. In my role as an educator, I teach and supervise undergraduates, medical students, residents, and fellows at Stanford University on a wide range of forensic topics.  I am also an active educator outside the university, providing trainings and seminars to students, attorneys, judges, neuroscientists, clinicians, and the public on the importance and relevance of neuroscience and the law.

In my role as an MD, I conduct clinical and research work in the interventional psychiatry group, primarily focused on treating patients with severe depression with advanced brain stimulation technologies such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS).

Prior to my current position I was Director of Forensic Evaluations at the Oregon State Hospital, where I was responsible for supervising a staff of twenty forensic psychologists and psychiatrists and overseeing the production of over 1,400 forensic reports annually. As director, I was routinely asked to testify and render expert opinions in the most complex cases, which typically involve defendants with brain damage, medical and genetic conditions which affect the mind, and neuroimaging evidence, and frequently asked to ascertain the relevance of neurological findings in either supporting or disconfirming psychiatric conditions and legal hypotheses. In addition to my duties as forensic director, at the time I was also affiliate psychiatry professor at Oregon Health and Sciences University (the main academic medical center in Oregon), where I was directly and mainly responsible for the training of OHSU’s forensic psychiatric fellows in conducting forensic evaluations and authoring forensic reports.

After completing my undergraduate studies at Stanford (in the field of computational neuroscience), I had the honor of being invited to, and completing, the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP), a federally funded, combined MD/PhD program designed to train the next generation of physician-scientists. My PhD is in Neurosciences, for work conducted at the Salk Institute investigating molecular mechanisms of brain development.

I am board-certified in both general psychiatry and forensic psychiatry. After completing psychiatry residency at UCLA-Neuropsychiatric Institute, I attended the University of Pennsylvania’s forensic psychiatry fellowship, where I specialized in neurolaw. Neurolaw is an academic field that investigates the use of neuroscience (such as brain imaging) in legal settings, such as criminal trials and sentencing hearings.

As a neurolaw expert, I have given professional talks, organized conferences, and authored professional articles and book chapters. I am a former associate editor for the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the law, and former chair of the Forensic Neuropsychiatry committee.

Dr. Choi has been an independent contractor to fpamed since 2019.