Faculty
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 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.
Ashley Russell
Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (Penn State Behrend)
The role of extracellular vesicles in neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative disorders
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, Neuroscience Institute – Hershey; 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.
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.