About Me
I am a neuroscientist interested in better understanding the human brain. For an overview of my academic and research background and how I developed an interest in understanding motivation, decision making, and the role of dopamine in these behaviors, read My Education & Career Story, below. I am passionate about communicating science to the general public and writing about training resources for graduate students & postdoctoral fellows. You can find my work at Health:Further, LifeApps, LinkedIn, and PassioInventa (where I focus on neuroscience and career exploration). I also write and solicit content for The POSTDOCket, the online newsletter for the National Postdoctoral Association. On January 24, 2022, I began a new role at Virginia Tech leading the establishment of an Office of Postdoctoral Affairs at the institution. |
My Education & Career Story
The Undergraduate Days:
As an undergraduate at Furman University, I worked with Dr. Judith Grisel (now at Bucknell University) using transgenic mouse models to better understand the role of beta-endorphin in stress and anxiety related behavior. Beta-endorphin is released in the brain in response to alcohol intake, and levels of this neuropeptide are lower in human alcoholics. Beta-endorphin release in the brain is thought to disinhibit GABA inhibition of dopamine releasing neurons found in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), facilitating dopamine release in the brain (particularly in the ventral striatum) and inducing euphoric feelins associated with alcohol intake (see recent review).
Work here got me interested in the neurobiology of alcohol abuse and the role of dopamine in addiction and motivated behavior.
Graduate School Work:
For my graduate work, I studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and gained experience in cognitive neuroscience, behavioral genetics, and neuroimaging (particularly functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI) to study the neural bases of a behavior thought to be abnormal in human problem alcohol users. Working with Dr. Charlotte Boettiger as my PhD advisor, I studied the impact of age and alcohol use on delay discounting behavior in humans.
Delay discounting involves assigning less subjective value to a future reward than one available in the present. Although all animals, including humans, discount the future, it has been shown that individuals with addictive disorders are steeper discounters (they value future rewards less) than age-matched controls. This devaluing of the future in addicted or problem drug users may explain why they have a difficult time seeing the long term benefits (better health, great work productivity, improved family and social interactions) of stopping the problematic behaviors they engage in NOW.
Using naturally occurring genetic polymorphisms in humans as proxy measures of dopamine system functioning in different regions of the brain, I discovered effects of putative frontal dopamine on delay discounting task behavior that mimics a commonly observed finding in the field of human working memory research - that frontal dopamine is related to behavioral performance according to an inverted-U function. Thus, too little or too much frontal dopamine impairs cognitive performance and, we find, the ability for participants to choose larger rewards available to them in the future.
We have also found this inverted-U relationship between frontal dopamine as measured with genetic polymorphisms and working memory task performance in our own work.
Finally, we have evidence that striatal and midbrain dopamine synthesis capacity as measured with FMT PET modulate some of the discounting parameters in our NOW vs LATER task.
For more on the research I conducted at UNC as part of my PhD training and to download and read copies of my published work and dissertation, look at my Neuroscience Research page.
Postdoctoral Work:
My interest in the role of dopamine in modulating cognition and affecting reward related behavior led me to seek out a postdoctoral fellowship in the Affective Neuroscience Lab at Vanderbilt headed by Dr. David Zald (now at Rutgers).
Working at Vanderbilt, I investigated the role of the dopamine system in human motivated behavior and decision making using a neuroimaging technique designed to measure the level of dopamine receptors, transporters, and dopamine release in the brain - positron emission tomography (PET).
Combining PET, genetic, and fMRI data collected in the same participants, we seek to better understand how the human brain encodes the value of primary (drugs, food) and secondary (money) rewards and the role of dopamine in this process. Understanding the neurobiological processes associated with valuation will give us further insight into how the brain makes decisions between competing options.
Read more about key findings from my postdoc work on the Neuroscience Research page.
VPA Leadership
I was actively involved with the Vanderbilt Postdoctoral Association (VPA) from 2016 to 2019, where I am served as Treasurer for the 2016-17 Academic Year and as Junior Co-Chair (equivalent to Vice President) for 2017-18. The VPA facilitates career and professional development, community outreach, and social engagement for the over 550 postdoctoral fellows across virtually all of Vanderbilt University (including the College of Arts and Science, Peabody College of Education and Human Development, School of Engineering, and Owen School of Management) and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The VPA is supported by and works closely with the Graduate School at Vanderbilt's Office of Postdoctoral Affairs.
Postdoctoral Affairs Program Manager at North Carolina State University
The scientific workforce is changing. I help trainees discover their unique set of skills and interests that can be translated to a meaningful career in academia, industry, government, or a non-profit organization.
From January 2019 to 2022, I served as Postdoctoral Affairs Program Manager in The Graduate School at North Carolina State University.
Read more about this career transition in my NIH BEST Blog archived here and follow my other blog pieces here.
A few other things about me:
In my spare time, I enjoy traveling, photography (all pictures on this website were taken by me), watching all manner of college and professional sports, and reading.
For books, I recommend Thinking Fast and Slow, Predictably Irrational, Nudge, Outliers: The Story of Success (non-fiction); and Ready Player One, All Our Wrong Todays, Daemon, The Circle (fiction).
For additional reading and podcast recommendations, see my first blog post of 2020.
The Undergraduate Days:
As an undergraduate at Furman University, I worked with Dr. Judith Grisel (now at Bucknell University) using transgenic mouse models to better understand the role of beta-endorphin in stress and anxiety related behavior. Beta-endorphin is released in the brain in response to alcohol intake, and levels of this neuropeptide are lower in human alcoholics. Beta-endorphin release in the brain is thought to disinhibit GABA inhibition of dopamine releasing neurons found in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), facilitating dopamine release in the brain (particularly in the ventral striatum) and inducing euphoric feelins associated with alcohol intake (see recent review).
Work here got me interested in the neurobiology of alcohol abuse and the role of dopamine in addiction and motivated behavior.
Graduate School Work:
For my graduate work, I studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and gained experience in cognitive neuroscience, behavioral genetics, and neuroimaging (particularly functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI) to study the neural bases of a behavior thought to be abnormal in human problem alcohol users. Working with Dr. Charlotte Boettiger as my PhD advisor, I studied the impact of age and alcohol use on delay discounting behavior in humans.
Delay discounting involves assigning less subjective value to a future reward than one available in the present. Although all animals, including humans, discount the future, it has been shown that individuals with addictive disorders are steeper discounters (they value future rewards less) than age-matched controls. This devaluing of the future in addicted or problem drug users may explain why they have a difficult time seeing the long term benefits (better health, great work productivity, improved family and social interactions) of stopping the problematic behaviors they engage in NOW.
Using naturally occurring genetic polymorphisms in humans as proxy measures of dopamine system functioning in different regions of the brain, I discovered effects of putative frontal dopamine on delay discounting task behavior that mimics a commonly observed finding in the field of human working memory research - that frontal dopamine is related to behavioral performance according to an inverted-U function. Thus, too little or too much frontal dopamine impairs cognitive performance and, we find, the ability for participants to choose larger rewards available to them in the future.
We have also found this inverted-U relationship between frontal dopamine as measured with genetic polymorphisms and working memory task performance in our own work.
Finally, we have evidence that striatal and midbrain dopamine synthesis capacity as measured with FMT PET modulate some of the discounting parameters in our NOW vs LATER task.
For more on the research I conducted at UNC as part of my PhD training and to download and read copies of my published work and dissertation, look at my Neuroscience Research page.
Postdoctoral Work:
My interest in the role of dopamine in modulating cognition and affecting reward related behavior led me to seek out a postdoctoral fellowship in the Affective Neuroscience Lab at Vanderbilt headed by Dr. David Zald (now at Rutgers).
Working at Vanderbilt, I investigated the role of the dopamine system in human motivated behavior and decision making using a neuroimaging technique designed to measure the level of dopamine receptors, transporters, and dopamine release in the brain - positron emission tomography (PET).
Combining PET, genetic, and fMRI data collected in the same participants, we seek to better understand how the human brain encodes the value of primary (drugs, food) and secondary (money) rewards and the role of dopamine in this process. Understanding the neurobiological processes associated with valuation will give us further insight into how the brain makes decisions between competing options.
Read more about key findings from my postdoc work on the Neuroscience Research page.
VPA Leadership
I was actively involved with the Vanderbilt Postdoctoral Association (VPA) from 2016 to 2019, where I am served as Treasurer for the 2016-17 Academic Year and as Junior Co-Chair (equivalent to Vice President) for 2017-18. The VPA facilitates career and professional development, community outreach, and social engagement for the over 550 postdoctoral fellows across virtually all of Vanderbilt University (including the College of Arts and Science, Peabody College of Education and Human Development, School of Engineering, and Owen School of Management) and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The VPA is supported by and works closely with the Graduate School at Vanderbilt's Office of Postdoctoral Affairs.
Postdoctoral Affairs Program Manager at North Carolina State University
The scientific workforce is changing. I help trainees discover their unique set of skills and interests that can be translated to a meaningful career in academia, industry, government, or a non-profit organization.
From January 2019 to 2022, I served as Postdoctoral Affairs Program Manager in The Graduate School at North Carolina State University.
Read more about this career transition in my NIH BEST Blog archived here and follow my other blog pieces here.
A few other things about me:
In my spare time, I enjoy traveling, photography (all pictures on this website were taken by me), watching all manner of college and professional sports, and reading.
For books, I recommend Thinking Fast and Slow, Predictably Irrational, Nudge, Outliers: The Story of Success (non-fiction); and Ready Player One, All Our Wrong Todays, Daemon, The Circle (fiction).
For additional reading and podcast recommendations, see my first blog post of 2020.