Faculty | Integrative and Biomedical Physiology

Lacy Alexander

Professor of Kinesiology
Dr. Alexander utilizes in vivo and in vitro approaches using the human cutaneous circulation to examine the underlying signaling mechanisms mediating microvascular dysfunction with primary human aging, hypercholesterolemia, and essential…

Paul Bartell

Associate Professor of Avian Biology

The regulation of biological clocks in birds at the systems level.

Peter Butler

Professor of Bioengineering

Fundamental molecular mechanisms by which vascular endothelial cells sense the forces from flowing blood and transduce this mechanical information into adjustments of cell and tissue biology.

Orfeu Buxton

Elizabeth Fenton Susman Professor of Biobehavioral Health
The causes of chronic sleep deficiency in the workplace, home, and society; the health consequences of chronic sleep deficiency, especially cardiometabolic outcomes, and the physiologic and social mechanisms by which these outcomes arise. Successful…

Margherita Cantorna

Director of the Center for Molecular Immunology and Infectious Disease; Distinguished Professor of Molecular Immunology
Understanding the working of the immune system. Utilizing animal models of several human diseases including enteric infections and inflammatory bowel disease to determine the cellular targets and molecular signals by which dietary components regulate…

Sonia Cavigelli

Chair, Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Neuroscience; Associate Professor of Biobehavioral Health

Development of temperament/personality; relationship of temperament and social status to stress and health; individual differences in stress and health in the natural environment.

Nikki Crowley

Huck Early Career Chair in Neurobiology & Neural Engineering; Assistant Professor of Biology and Biomedical Engineering; Associate Director for Postdoctoral Training and Leadership, Center for Neural Engineering

Investigation of peptidergic transmission throughout the brain, using cell-specific and pathway-specific manipulations to understand how peptides alter neuronal signaling and behavior, particularly in the context of stress and drug use.

nzc27@psu.edu

Mary Jane De Souza

Distinguished Professor of Kinesiology
Women's health and Physical Activity, Endocrinology of the Female Athlete, Effects of Exercise on the Menstrual Cycle, Female Athlete Triad (Eating disorders, amenorrhea and osteoporosis), Eating Behaviors, Food Intake, and Exercise, Luteal Phase…

Francisco Diaz

Director of the Center for Reproductive Health and Biology; Associate Professor of Reproductive Biology

Ovarian physiology. Role of SMAD-mediated signaling in follicular and female germ cell (oocyte) development.

Patrick Drew

Associate Director of the Neuroscience Institute; Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics, of Neurosurgery, of Biology, and of Biomedical Engineering

Optical imaging of brain dynamics during sleep and behavior; Role of blood flow and cerebrospinal fluid movement in neurodegenerative disease

Erika Ganda

Assistant Professor of Food Animal Microbiomes

Developing practical ways to leverage the microbiome to improve food safety and improve food production animals' production efficiency.

Alison Gernand

Ann Atherton Hertzler Early Career Professor in Global Health; Assistant Professor of Nutritional Sciences

Pamela Giblin

Professor of Immunology

The role of receptor tyrosine kinases in normal physiology and disease progression; the downstream signals that mediate these responses in vivo and in vitro.

Molly Hall

Dr. Frances Keesler Graham Early Career Professor; Assistant Professor of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences
Building tools to elucidate the complex genetic and environmental underpinnings of human disease. Integrating genetic (genotype, sequence, structural variation) and exposure (derived from surveys and metabolomics methods) big data to predict disease…

William Hancock

Professor of Bioengineering

The detailed workings of motor proteins and their role in intracellular transport and cell motility.

Kevin Harvatine

Associate Professor of Nutritional Physiology
Investigation of dietary factors that modify ruminal fatty acid biohydrogenation, regulation of synthesis of milk components, and basic regulation of lipid synthesis with the continual goal of developing feeding strategies to improve the efficiency…

Joshua Kellogg

Emphasis Area Representative, Molecular Toxicology; Assistant Professor of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences
Development of new metabolomics tools for chemical and biological characterization of complex systems. Discovery of new natural products from plants and microorganisms with novel bioactivity against pathogenic fungi and neglected tropical diseases.…

W. Larry Kenney

Professor of Physiology and Kinesiology

Environmental and exercise physiology, particularly human thermoregulation, skin blood flow, and the biophysics of heat exchange.

Girish Kirimanjeswara

Emphasis Area Representative, Immunology and Infectious Disease; Associate Professor of Veterinary and Biomedical Science

Establishing the Virulence Factors

Laura Klein

Professor of Biobehavioral Health

Biobehavioral effects of stress on drug abuse; sex differences in neuroendocrine and behavioral stress responses; nicotine regulation of stress reactivity.

Donna Korzick

Director of Graduate Training Initiatives; Chair, Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Integrative and Biomedical Physiology; Professor of Physiology and Kinesiology
My research is focused on aging, post-menopausal women, and cardiac ischemia reperfusion injury using animal models. We are particularly interested in the effects of estrogen deficiency on mitochondrial regulation of cell survival following…

Suresh Kuchipudi

Huck Chair in Emerging Infectious Diseases; Clinical Associate Professor; Section Head Mammalian Virology & Immunology

Diagnostic Virology & Serology -Zoonotic and Emerging Viruses -Negative strand RNA viruses -Avian and Mammalian influenza -Immune responses to viruses -Viral pathogenesis Quantitative-omics approach to virus-host interactions

Joshua Lambert

Professor of Food Science
Dietary polyphenols in prevention of obesity and fatty liver disease; efficacy and mechanisms of action of food-derived phytochemicals in prevention of lung cancer; biotransformation, bioavailability and potential hepatotoxicity of dietary…

Wansheng Liu

Professor of Genomics

Functional annotation of farm animal genomes, structure and function of mammalian sex (X and Y) chromosome, spermatogenesis and male fertility.

Keefe Manning

Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Surgery

Understanding the native cardiovascular system fluid mechanics; understanding the diseased cardiovascular system fluid mechanics, and the impact that cardiovascular prosthetics generate during and post implantation.

James Marden

Associate Director of Operations, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences; Professor of Biology

How physiological variation within species affects their ecology and evolution. Primarily with insects, but recently also with plants, and a particular interest in allelic variation in the pathogen resistance genes of tropical trees.

Melanie McReynolds

Huck Early Career Chair in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

The biochemistry behind aging and its intersection with stress, with the long-term goal of identifying strategies that promote healthier aging.

Gustavo Nader

Associate Professor of Kinesiology

Skeletal muscle growth control and adaptations to exercise. Ribosome biogenesis, transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of RNA Polymerase I.

Troy Ott

Associate Director for Graduate Education, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences; Professor of Reproductive Physiology

Reproductive immunology and the physiology of early pregnancy.

Andrew Patterson

Professor and Huck Chair of Molecular Toxicology; Faculty Oversight, Metabolomics Core Facility

The Patterson lab is focused on understanding the host-metabolite-microbiome axis

Robert Paulson

Professor of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences

The Paulson lab studies the mechanisms that regulate tissue regeneration with a focus on understanding the response to anemic and hypoxic stress

James Pawelczyk

Associate Professor of Physiology and Kinesiology

Neural control of circulation, particularly skeletal muscle blood flow, as it is affected by exercise or spaceflight.

Gary Perdew

Director of the Center for Molecular Toxicology and Carcinogenesis; H. Thomas and Dorothy Willits Hallowell Chair in Agricultural Sciences

Mechanisms of receptor-mediated carcinogenesis.

Kumble Sandeep Prabhu

Professor of Immunology and Molecular Toxicology

Molecular mechanisms by which bioactives such as selenium, omega-3 fatty acids, and other products of natural origin alter the host response and immune function in inflammation and cancer

Justin Pritchard

Huck Early Career Entrepreneurial Professorship; Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering;

Using systems and synthetic biology approaches to understand and control drug resistance.

David Proctor

Professor of Kinesiology, Physiology, and Medicine

Physiology of aging and exercise; cardiovascular responses to exercise; regulation of skeletal muscle blood flow; skeletal muscle adaptation; vascular adaptation.

Ramesh Ramachandran

Professor of Molecular Endocrinology

The influence of hypothalamic neurotransmitters, hormones, and their receptors on avian reproduction.

Jonas Rubenson

Associate Professor of Kinesiology
Integrating experimental and modeling approaches to study gait and skeletal muscle function during locomotion in both health and disease/impairment. In particular, the relationship between in vivo muscle mechanics and metabolic energetics and…

Robert Sainburg

Director of the Center for Movement Science and Technology; Huck Distinguished Chair in Kinesiology and Neurology; Professor of Kinesiology and of Neurology

The neural mechanisms that underlie control, coordination, and learning of voluntary movements in humans. Functional neuroanatomy of lateralized processes of motor control. Neurorehabilitation and Functional Recovery in stroke patients.

Rudolf Schilder

Associate Professor of Entomology and Biology

Comparative & ecological physiology of insect and mammalian locomotion.

Anthony Schmitt

Professor of Molecular Immunology and Infectious Diseases

The process of paramyxovirus particle formation by budding: identifying and characterizing viral proteins used in budding, and learning how these manipulate host budding machinery to allow virus release.

Mary Kathryn Schmitz

Professor of Epidemiology

kzs95@psu.edu

Greg Shearer

Associate Professor of Nutritional Sciences
We seek to understand disease-related functional changes in the context of global changes in lipid mediators (bioactive metabolites of dietary fatty acids) and use them to identify markers of disease and better ways to prevent or manage…

Vishal Singh

Assistant Professor of Nutritional Physiology and Microbiome

Tarkeshwar Singh

Assistant Professor of Kinesiology

tzs134@psu.edu

Karolina Skibicka

Huck Chair of Metabolic Physiology; Associate Professor of Nutritional Sciences
Utilizing rodent models to discover novel neural substrates that control fundamental homeostatic and reward controls of food intake, and their failures in the case of obesity and infection-induced anorexia; How food and feeding behavior affect neural…

kps5783@psu.edu

Danielle Smarsh

Assistant Professor of Equine Science; Equine Extension Specialist

Burt Staniar

Assistant Professor of Equine Science

Troy Sutton

Assistant Professor of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences

Animal models of influenza; Airborne transmission of influenza viruses; Evolution of pandemic influenza viruses; Highly pathogenic avian influenza; Development of live-attenuated influenza vaccine platforms; High containment BSL3+ research

Gwendolyn Thomas

Assistant Research Professor

gat112@psu.edu

rkz5110@psu.edu