Faculty
Emily Ansell
Associate Professor of Biobehavioral Health Advancing research surrounding stress and addiction.
Paul Bartell
Chair, Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Neuroscience; 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.
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…
Eric Claus
Associate Professor of Biobehavioral Health Identifying neural and cognitive mechanisms that support behavior change in substance use disorders.
Nikki Crowley
Assistant Professor of Biology and Biomedical 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
Nanyin Zhang
Huck Chair in Brain Imaging; Professor of Bioengineering Investigate the pathophysiology of brain disorders using neuroimaging, behavioral and optogenetic methods.