Director, Post-Infection Metabolic Therapy
Dana Dharmakaya Colgan, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and Senior Research Fellow at the Helfgott Research Institute at National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon. Trained as a health and neuropsychologist, she holds two NIH-funded fellowships in integrative medicine and behavioral neuroscience, a clinical residency in neuropsychology, and advanced training in metabolic psychiatry.
Driven by her lived experience with Long COVID, and the significant relief she achieved through ketogenic metabolic therapy, Dr. Colgan expanded her research to investigate metabolic interventions for post-infectious conditions, including ME/CFS and dysautonomia. Her translational work ranges from community needs assessments to randomized controlled trials. She is a funded researcher on the NIH RECOVER trials, Principal Investigator on an FDA-approved Long COVID trial, and participates in the ECHO Canada Long COVID Collaborative. As Director of Post-Infection Metabolic Therapy at Santa Barbara Nutrients, she guides the development and evaluation of metabolic nutritional approaches for people living with post-infectious illness.
Beyond metabolic health, Dr. Colgan serves as Director of Perioperative Cognitive Assessment and Intracranial Brain Mapping at OHSU for the awake craniotomy program. She is a nationally recognized consultant in mindfulness-based resilience, a certified yoga therapist, and a meditation instructor with over 7,000 hours in meditation retreat. With nearly a decade of NIH funding, she has authored over 80 peer-reviewed publications and abstracts, and her work has been recognized with the Exceptional Research Award at the 2023 World Congress on Integrative Medicine and Health in Rome and the Samueli Foundation's Distinguished New Investigator Award.
In her free time, she enjoys exploring faraway places, wandering through the woods with her pup and partner, and scuba diving in warm waters.
