Faculty
Kevin Alloway
Co-Chair, Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Neuroscience; Professor of Neural and Behavioral Sciences Neural basis of sensorimotor integration neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, optogenetics.
Peter Arnett
Professor of Psychology Clinical neuropsychology, neurocognitive effects of multiple sclerosis, and the neurocognitive and emotional consequences of sports-related concussion in collegiate athletes.
Paul Bartell
Associate Professor of Avian Biology The regulation of biological clocks in birds at the systems level.
Roger Beaty
Assistant Professor of Psychology The cognitive neuroscience of creative thinking and problem solving.
Sheri Berenbaum
Professor of Psychology and Pediatrics Development and neuroendocrine basis of human sex-typed cognition and social behavior.
Orfeu Buxton
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…
Sonia Cavigelli
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.
Anne-Marie Chang
Assistant Professor in Biobehavioral Health Genetic analysis of sleep and circadian rhythms, cardio-metabolic function in humans; effects of light on sleep, circadian physiology, and neurobehavioral performance.
John Collins
Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Physics Algorithms of neural computation for learning and memory; relationship between neuronal and behavioral phenomena.
Nikki Crowley
Assistant Research Professor 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.
Nancy Dennis
Associate Professor of Psychology The cognitive and neural mechanisms that support learning and memory in young and older adults.
Patrick Drew
Associate Director of the Neuroscience Institute; Huck Distinguished Associate Professor of Neural Engineering and Neurosurgery Role of blood flow and cerebrospinal fluid movement in the development of neurodegenerative diseases, control of cerebral blood flow, neurovascular coupling.
Chris Engeland
Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health and Nursing How stress, age, gender, and hormones affect inflammation / health. Biomarker feasibility for predicting health outcomes.
Nicole Etter
Assistant Professor of Health and Human Development The relationship between tactile sensation and skilled oral behaviors (e.g. speech and swallowing) in healthy young, aging, and clinical populations.
Lisa Gatzke-Kopp
Professor of Human Development and Family Studies Developmental neuroscience of psychopathology with a focus on aggression, hyperactivity, and substance abuse; relationship between experience, environment, and neurobiological dysfunction.
Charles Geier
Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies Adolescent neurodevelopment and risky decision making; emergence of substance use; fMRI methods
Rick Gilmore
Professor of Psychology The cognitive neuroscience of perception, memory, and action in infancy and early childhood.
Santhosh Girirajan
Associate Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology; Associate Professor of Anthropology Understanding the genetic basis of neurodevelopmental disorders.
Bruce Gluckman
Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics; Professor of Neurosurgery; Professor of Biomedical Engineering; Associate Director, Penn State Center for Neural Engineering The dynamics of neural systems, how group dynamics form or emerge from the coupled dynamics of individual units, and how to measure and interact with these systems.
Thomas Gould
Jean Phillips Shibley Professor and Department Head of Biobehavioral Health Using genetic, pharmacological, behavioral, and molecular biological techniques to study the neurobiology of learning and memory and the effects of addiction on it.
John Hayes
Associate Professor of Food Science Psychophysics of taste and flavor perception; role of genetic variation on food preferences
Frank Hillary
Associate Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neurology Effects of brain injury and disease on functional brain organization; EEG and MRI-based examination of neuroplasticity in healthy and disrupted neural systems, including traumatic brain injury and multiple sclerosis.
Vasant Honavar
Professor and Edward Frymoyer Chair of Information Sciences and Technology Statistical machine learning algorithms for predictive modeling; modeling and inference of biological networks; characterization and prediction of protein-protein, protein-RNA, and protein-DNA interactions.
Timothy Jegla
Emphasis Area Representative, Molecular and Evolutionary Genetics; Associate Professor of Biology Functional evolution of eukaryotic ion channels and evolution of neuronal signaling and cell structure.
Dezhe Jin
Associate Professor of Physics Computational models of neural basis of motor control and learning; theoretical analysis of biological neural networks.
Helen Kamens
Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health Identification of genetic mechanisms that contribute to complex behaviors with a special emphasis on alcohol and tobacco use.
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.
Reuben Kraft
Shuman Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Computational methods and high performance computing to examine brain neurotrauma biomechanics; human structural connectome analysis using physics-based predictions of biomechanical brain injury.
Janine Kwapis
Assistant Professor of Biology Molecular and epigenetic mechanisms underlying learning and memory and age-related memory impairments.
Zhi-Chun Lai
Emphasis Area Representative, Cell and Developmental Biology; Professor of Biology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Signal Transduction, Growth Control, and Cancer Genetics
Aimin Liu
Associate Professor of Biology Biogenesis and function of cilia in mammalian embryonic development.
Bernhard Luscher
Emphasis Area Representative, Neurobiology; Director of the Center for Molecular Investigation of Neurological Disorders; Professor of Biology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Function of GABAergic synaptic transmission in health and disease, with emphasis of stress based psychiatric disorders such as major depressive disorders and mechanisms of antidepressant drug action
Yingwei Mao
Associate Professor of Biology
Regulation of neurogenesis using cellular and mouse models; analysis of abnormal neural progenitor cell (NPC) proliferation and its relationship to mental illnesses; identification of drugs that can reverse mouse models of psychiatric…
Richard Ordway
Professor of Molecular Neuroscience and Genetics Genetic analysis of neural function.
Frank Ritter
Professor of Information Sciences and Technology, Psychology, Cognitive Science Modeling effects of stress and behavior moderators on cognition within cognitive architectures.
Melissa Rolls
Chair, Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Molecular, Cellular and Integrative Biosciences; Director of the Center for Cellular Dynamics; Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Subcellular compartmentalization of neurons. The cellular basis of neuronal polarity and neuronal responses to injury including degeneration and regeneration.
Robert Sainburg
Director of the Center for Movement Science and Technology; Professor of Kinesiology; Professor of Neurology Neural mechanisms underlying control of multijoint arm movements in humans.
Chaleece Sandberg
Assistant Professor of Communication Sciences & Disorders Exploring cortical reorganization related to successful therapy for acquired language disorders, and how to enhance therapy outcomes.
Kathryn Suzanne Scherf
Associate Professor of Psychology Development of face and object representation in typically developing children and children with developmental disorders.
Steven Schiff
Director of the Center for Neural Engineering; Brush Chair Professor of Engineering; Professor of Neurosurgery; Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics Neural engineering, neurosurgery, epilepsy, Parkinsons Disease, wave mechanics, brain machine interfaces, EEG, electrical fields, and control theory.
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…
Semyon Slobounov
Professor of Kinesiology and Neurosurgery Psychophysiology of human movement.
Moriah Szpara
Associate Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Neurovirology, genomics of pathogen variation, neuron-virus relationships
David Vandenbergh
Professor of Biobehavioral Health Genetics of addiction in human populations and its neurobiological basis in animal models.
Stephen Wilson
Associate Professor of Psychology Addictive behavior, with a specific focus on cigarette smoking.
Nanyin Zhang
Huck Chair in Brain Imaging; Professor of Bioengineering Investigate the pathophysiology of brain disorders using neuroimaging, behavioral and optogenetic methods.