People
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
Director, Penn State Neuroscience Institute – University Park; Huck Chair in Neural Engineering; Associate Professor, Departments of Biology, Biomedical Engineering, & Neurosurgery
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, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences; 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
Santhosh Girirajan
Professor of Genomics; Professor of Anthropology; Department Head of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Understanding the genetic basis of neurodevelopmental disorders.
Bruce Gluckman
Director of the Center for Neural Engineering; Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics, of Neurosurgery, and of Biomedical 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.
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.
Sri-Rajasekhar Kothapalli
Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Development and translation of multimodal imaging technologies—integrating optical, ultrasound, and photoacoustic methods—for pre-clinical and clinical applications in cancer, vascular, and neurological diseases. The core objective is to enable non-invasive, simultaneous measurements of structural, functional, and molecular information in living subjects with high spatial and temporal resolutions across both superficial and deep tissue regions.
Nina Lauharatanahirun
Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health and Biomedical Engineering
Using computational modeling, behavioral economic paradigms, and functional neuroimaging (fMRI/EEG) to understand the neural and behavioral mechanisms underlying health risk behaviors across the life.
Yingwei Mao
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 disorders.
Thomas Neuberger
Director, High Field Magnetic Resonance Imaging Facility; Research Professor
Elizabeth Proctor
Associate Professor of Neurosurgery and of Pharmacology
Systems biology of complex disease. Integration of heterogeneous data types across length scales.
Grayson Sipe
Assistant Professor of Biology
Studying the molecular and cellular mechanisms that drive brain state shifts, which are crucial for understanding maladaptive states in neuropsychiatric disorders such as stress and addiction.
Lingzhou Xue
Professor of Statistics
High-dimensional statistics, statistical learning, optimization, econometrics, and statistical applications in biological science, environmental science, and social science.
Nanyin Zhang
Director of the Center for Neurotechnology in Mental Health Research; Huck Chair in Brain Imaging; Professor of Bioengineering
Investigating the pathophysiology of brain disorders using neuroimaging, behavioral and optogenetic methods.