People

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

Kevin Alloway

Professor Emeritus of Neural and Behavioral Sciences
Neural basis of sensorimotor integration neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, optogenetics.

Emily Ansell

Associate Professor of Biobehavioral Health
Advancing research surrounding stress and addiction.

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

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 aging is a central focus of this work. Ongoing interdisciplinary human studies involve sleep loss, aging, and insomnia, as well as health disparities.

Laura Cabrera

Huck Early Career Chair in Neuroethics; Associate Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics
The ethical and societal implications of neurotechnologies used for treatment as well as for enhancement purposes.

Douglas Cavener

Huck Distinguished Chair in Evolutionary Genetics; Professor of Biology; Former Dean, Eberly College of Science
Regulation of protein synthesis and control of translation initiation of mRNAs in higher eukaryotes and the evolution of tissue specific transcriptional regulation.

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.

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.

Eric Claus

Associate Professor of Biobehavioral Health
Identifying neural and cognitive mechanisms that support behavior change in substance use disorders.

John Collins

Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Physics
Algorithms of neural computation for learning and memory; relationship between neuronal and behavioral phenomena.

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.

Carina Curto

Professor of Mathematics
Mathematics applied to and arising from theoretical and computational neuroscience. Neural network theory and neural coding. Applied algebra, topology, and geometry.

Nancy Dennis

Associate Professor of Psychology
The cognitive and neural mechanisms that support learning and memory in young and older adults.

Michele Diaz

Associate Professor of Psychology & Linguistics

Chris Engeland

Associate 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

Associate 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; computational neuroscience; open science, data sharing, reproducibility.

Santhosh Girirajan

Associate Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology; Associate Professor of Anthropology
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.

John Hayes

Professor of Food Science; Director, Sensory Evaluation Center
Perception of taste, smell and chemesthesis; eating behavior; individual differences in sensation and food preferences; COVID related anosmia

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

Huck Chair in Biomedical Data Sciences and AI; 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.

Xiaogang Hu

Huck Chair in Neurorehabilitation; Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Kinesiology, and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation
Neural-machine interface, somatosensory feedback, neural control of biological and bionic hands, neuromuscular disorder.

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

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.

Aimin Liu

Associate Professor of Biology
Biogenesis and function of cilia in mammalian embryonic development.

Xiao Liu

Associatet Professor of Biomedical Engineering

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 disorders.

Richard Ordway

Professor of Molecular Neuroscience and Genetics
Genetic analysis of neural function.

Elizabeth Proctor

Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery, Pharmacology, Biomedical Engineering, and Engineering Science & Mechanics
Systems biology of complex disease. Integration of heterogeneous data types across length scales.

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; Paul Berg 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; 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.

Krishnankutty Sathian

Director of the Neuroscience Institute; Professor and Chair of Neurology; Professor of Psychology

Kathryn Suzanne Scherf

Associate Professor of Psychology
Development of face and object representation in typically developing children and children with developmental disorders.

Scott Selleck

Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Grayson Sipe

Assistant Professor of Biology
Studying the molecular and cellular mechanisms that drive shifts in arousal, which are crucial for understanding maladaptive arousal in neuropsychiatric disorders such as anxiety and addiction.

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 circuits controlling sociability and emotionality.

Semyon Slobounov

Professor of Kinesiology and Neurosurgery
Psychophysiology of human movement.

Moriah Szpara

Associate Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Biology
How genetic variation influences the outcomes of viral infection, particularly for neurotropic viruses such as herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) and HSV-2, using high-throughput sequencing, comparative genomics, neuronal cultures, and genetic manipulation of both host and pathogen.

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

Director of the Center for Neurotechnology in Mental Health Research; Huck Chair in Brain Imaging; Professor of Bioengineering
Investigate the pathophysiology of brain disorders using neuroimaging, behavioral and optogenetic methods.

Ruobo Zhou

Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Quantitatively and functionally understanding the compartmentalization and spatiotemporal organization of protein-protein and protein-RNA interactions involved in fundamental cell functions as well as in cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.

Tao Zhou

Assistant Professor
The intersection of neuroengineering, electronics, materials science, and bioengineering, with the goal to improve human health