COLLABORATE

A multidisciplinary team of scholars spanning the globe

UC Irvine CNLM Fellows

The CNLM Fellows represent one of the world’s top “think tanks” in neuroscience. With an average of $20 million each year in federal funding to support high impact research programs, as well as over 10,000 citations per Fellow, they are revolutionizing our understanding of the brain and its disorders, creating innovative neurotechnologies, and improving brain health on a global scale.

Amal Alachkar, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Teaching
Pharmaceutical Sciences

Neural correlates of mental states, mechanisms of psychiatric disorders (schizophrenia, bipolar
disorder, depression), cilia and cognition

Javier Diaz Alonso, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Anatomy and Neurobiology

Synapse organization, synaptic plasticity, molecular neuroscience, AMPA receptor, endocannabinoid system, epilepsy

 

 

Pierre Baldi, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor
School of Information and Computer Sciences

Deep Learning, Neural Networks, Reinforcement Learning, and their Theoretical Foundations and Applications

Tallie Z. Baram M.D., Ph.D.

Professor
Pediatrics

Stress-memory interactions, sex-differerces, early-life stress, brain circuit maturation, CRH, reward, anhedonia, PTSD

Lee Bardwell Ph.D.

Professor and Vice Chair
Developmental and Cell Biology
School of Biological Sciences

 

Kevin T. Beier, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Physiology & Biophysics

Neuroscience, Neural Circuits, Neural plasticity, Molecular Neuroscience, Behavior, Technique Development, Viral-genetic

Sven Bernecker, Ph.D.

Professor
Philosophy

Epistemology of memory, epistemic benefits of memory's imperfections, mnemonic confabulation

Mathew Blurton-Jones, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Stem cells, Parkinson disease, Alzheimer's disease, neurogenesis, neurodegeneration

Aaron Bornstein, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Department of Cognitive Science

Computational cognitive neuroscience, episodic memory, decision-making, intertemporal choice, perceptual decisions, statistical inference, addiction, fMRI, EEG

 

Daniela Bota, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor
Neurology
School of Medicine

Glioblastoma, brain cancer, cancer stem cells, cancer therapeutics, chemotherapy-induced neurological impairment, neural stem cells

 

 

Gregory Brewer, Ph.D.

Professor
Biomedical Engineering

Memory, Alzheimer's disease, neuronal networks, neuron cell culture, in vitro physiology

Jorge Busciglio, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Alzheimer's disease, Down's syndrome, neurodegeneration, axonal transport, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction

Susan Charles, Ph.D.

Professor
Psychological Science

Emotional processes across the adult life span, subjective experience and cognitive processes, health and emotion

Chuansheng Chen, Ph.D.

Chancellor's Professor
Psychological Science and Education

Cross-cultural psychology, adolescent development, cognitive neuroscience, behavior genetics

Liz Chrastil, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Navigation, spatial memory, episodic memory, individual differences, fMRI, virtual reality

Lulu Chen, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Anatomy and Neurobiology

Neurodevelopment, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Schizophrenia, Learning and Memory, Synapse formation

Susana Cohen-Cory, Ph.D.

Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Synapse formation in the developing nervous system; in vivo imaging studies

Karina Cramer, Ph.D.

Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Neural development, plasticity, synaptogenesis, glia, pruning, auditory brainstem

Barbara Dosher, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor
Cognitive Science

Attention, perceptual learning, human information processing, visual perception, memory retrieval

 

 

Laura Ewell, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Anatomy and Neurobiology

network mechanisms, single unit recording, oscillations, memory, pattern separation, epilepsy

 

 

Lisa Flanagan, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Neurology

Neural stem cell differentiation, development, stem cell transplantation, extracellular matrix

 

Norbert Fortin, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, electrophysiology, behavioral neuroscience, sequence memory

Christie Fowler, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Drug addiction, nicotine, aversion, genetics, learning, dopamine, motivated behaviors

Ron Frostig, Ph.D.

Professor Neurobiology and Behavior

Sensory neocortex, cortical plasticity, structural-function relationships, optical imaging

Christine Gall, Ph.D.

Professor
Anatomy and Neurobiology

Adult synaptic plasticity, memory encoding, synaptic modulators, intellectual disability, autism, adhesion proteins, neurotrophic factors

Sunil Gandhi, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Critical period plasticity, interneurons, visual system, neuronal transplantation, connectomics, brain clearing

Charles Glabe, Ph.D.

Professor
Molecular Biology and Biochemistry

Amyloid, pathogenesis, neurodegenerative disease, neuroinflammation, immunotherapy

Kim Green, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Alzheimer’s disease, microglia, inflammation, aging, therapeutics

John Guzowski, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Learning, memory, synaptic plasticity, hippocampus, gene expression, immediate early gene imaging

Elizabeth Head, Ph.D.

Professor
Pathology

Clinical and neuropathological study of aging and Alzheimer disease in Down syndrome, preclinical studies in an animal model of Alzheimer disease, cerebrovascular dysfunction and neuroinflammation

 

Gregory Hickok, Ph.D.

Professor
Cognitive Sciences

Neuroanatomy of language, neural plasticity, neuroimaging, cognitive neuroscience

Robert Hunt, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Anatomy and Neurobiology

Neural circuits, synapses, stem cells, epilepsy, autism, hippocampal plasticity, electrophysiology

Kei Igarashi, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Anatomy and Neurobiology

Memory, olfaction, Alzheimer's disease, hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, electrophysiology

Autumn Ivy, M.D., Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Pediatrics

Early-life experience, epigenetics, neurology, learning and memory, developmental disorders, exercise

Susanne Jaeggi, Ph.D.

Professor
Education

Working memory, executive control, plasticity, cognitive training, transfer, neural stimulation

Claudia Kawas, M.D.

Professor
Neurology

Aging, dementia, longevity, oldest old, epidemiology, Alzheimer’s, neuropathology, geriatrics

J. Zoe Klemfuss, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Psychological Science

Narrative development, Children’s autobiographical memory, Sociocontextual influences on children’s narrative, memory, and well-being, Children’s eyewitness abilities

Jeffrey Krichmar, Ph.D.

Professor
Cognitive Neurosciences

Computational neuroscience, decision making, evolutionary computation, robotics, spatial navigation

Frank LaFerla, Ph.D.

Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Molecular biology, Alzheimer's disease, learning and memory, transgenic mouse models

Albert R. La Spada, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor
Pathology & Neurology

Neurodegeneration, neurotherapeutics, neurogenetics, translational neuroscience

Julie Lauterborn, Ph.D.

Full Researcher
Anatomy and Neurobiology

Intellectual disability, Fragile X, Down syndrome, Autism, stress, learning and memory, plasticity

Michael Lee, Ph.D.

Professor
Cognitive Sciences

Cognitive modeling, memory models, decision making, Bayesian statistics, individual differences

Michael Leon, Ph.D.

Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Olfactory processing, sensory enrichment, autism, aging, Alzheimer’s disease

Frances Leslie, Ph.D.

Professor
Pharmacology

Neuropharmacology, addiction, drugs of abuse, brain development, adolescence, prenatal period

Linda Levine, Ph.D.

Professor
Psychological Science

Relations between cognitive and emotional development, how emotions influence attention and memory

Mimi Liljeholm, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Cognitive Sciences
Reinforcement learning, structure learning, inductive reasoning, decision-making, addiction, social transmission

Charles Limoli, Ph.D.

Professor
Radiation Oncology

Oxidative stress, hippocampal neurogenesis, stem cells, transplantation, chemo-brain, memory

Elizabeth Loftus, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor
Psychological Science

Human memory, false memories, eyewitness testimony, psychology and law, criminology

Shahrdad Lotfipour, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Emergency Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Learning and Memory, Limbic Brain, Drug Seeking, Gut-Brain Axis, Development, Maternal Drug Exposure, Brain Imaging, Reward

Angela Lukowski, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Psychological Science

Memory development in infancy and early childhood; individual differences in long-term memory in infancy; the impact of early nutrition on development

Gyorgy Lur, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Neuronal signal integration, chronic and acute stress, cognitive behavior, optical techniques

Gary Lynch, Ph.D.

Professor
Psychiatry and Human Behavior

Synaptic plasticity, LTP, glutamate receptors, cognitive disorders, computational models

Stephen Mahler, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Addiction, reward circuits, cannabinoids, Pavlovian conditioning, motivation, executive function

Bryce Mander, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Psychiatry and Human Behavior

Sleep disorders, cognitive aging, Alzheimer's disease, memory, neurodegeneration

Mark Mapstone, Ph.D.

Professor
Neurology

Cognitive aging, neuropsychology, amnesia, metabolomics, biomarkers, cognitive phenotyping

Elizabeth Martin, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Psychological Science

Transdiagnostic emotional and social functioning, affective control and regulation, affect and memory

James McGaugh, Ph.D.

Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Emotional modulation of memory, arousal, memory consolidation, superior autobiographical memory

Bruce McNaughton, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Computational models, hippocampus, learning and memory, plasticity, spatial memory, neurophysiology

Sara Mednick, Ph.D.

Professor
Cognitive Sciences

Sleep, EEG, pharmacology, memory consolidation, psychophysics, fMRI, aging and disease

Raju Metherate, Ph.D.

Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Neurophysiology, synaptic physiology of auditory cortex, sensory plasticity, nicotine

Bin Nan, Ph.D.

Professor
Statistics

High-dimensional statistics, imaging analysis, longitudinal analysis, statistical learning

Andrea Nicholas, Ph.D.

Lecturer
Neurobiology and Behavior

Learning and memory in the classroom, educational methods, tools and software for active learning

Diane O'Dowd, Ph.D.

Professor
Developmental and Cell Biology

Molecular genetics, drugs, induced pluripotent stem cells, flies, functional plasticity, neuronal maturation

Andre Obenaus, Ph.D.

Professor
Pediatrics

MRI, traumatic brain injury, stroke, aging, circuits, brain vasculature, early life stress, animal imaging

Sean Ostlund, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Anesthesiology and Perioperative Care
Behavior, reward, maladaptive, optogenetic, dysregulation, disorders

Megan Peters, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Cognitive Science

Perception, metacognition, consciousness, computational modeling, fMRI

Daniele Piomelli, Ph.D.

Professor
Anatomy and Neurobiology

cellular pharmacology, neuropharmacology

Jodi Quas, Ph.D.

Professor
Psychological Science

Trauma, memory, children, legal system

Uma Rao, M.D.

Professor
Psychiatry and Human Behavior

Adolescence, depression, substance abuse, neurobiology, risk/resilience

 

David Reinkensmeyer, Ph.D.

Professor
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Neuromuscular control, motor learning, robotics, stroke rehabilitation, computational models

Jenna L Riis, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Psychological Science
School of Social Ecology

Child development, early life adversity, stress, salivary bioscience, public health, program implementation and evaluation.

Eitan Schechtman, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior
School of Biological Sciences

Sleep, memory, cognitive neuroscience, EEG

Robert Spitale, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Pharmaceutical Sciences

Neurochemistry, chemical biology, RNA biology, RNA therapeutics for memory and learning disorders

Craig Stark, Ph.D.

Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Memory, hippocampus, neuroimaging, amnesia, fMRI, video games, aging

Oswald Steward, Ph.D.

Professor
Anatomy & Neurobiology

Spinal cord injury, regeneration, sprouting, epilepsy, excitotoxicity, cellular mechanisms of plasticity

Mark Steyvers Ph.D.

Professor
Cognitive Sciences

Wisdom of crowds, aggregating human judgments, computational models of the mind, machine learning and statistics

Georg Striedter, Ph.D.

Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Evolutionary neurobiology and animal behavior

Andrea Tenner, Ph.D.

Professor
Molecular Biology and Biochemistry

Innate immunity, inflammation, complement, Alzheimer's disease, cell surface receptors

Julian Thayer, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor
Psychological Science

Leslie Thompson, Ph.D.

Professor
Psychiatry and Human Behavior

Human genetic disorders, precision medicine, Huntington’s disease, genomics, therapeutics

Katherine Thompson-Peer, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Developmental & Cell Biology
Dendrite regeneration, development, brain injury, neurodegeneration, dendrite regeneration

Kristina A. Uban, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Public Health
Institute for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research (IISBR)

Theo G.M. van Erp, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Psychiatry & Human Behavior
School of Medicine

Psychiatry, brain data analysis, schizophrenia

Craig Walsh, Ph.D.

Professor
Molecular Biology and Biochemistry

Immunology, apoptosis, signal transduction, T cells, autoimmunity, memory deficits

Momoko Watanabe, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Anatomy and Neurobiology

Neurodevelopment, stem cells, brain organoids, tissue engineering, autism spectrum disorders, neurological disorders

DeWayne P. Williams, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Psychological Science

Social health psychology, health disparities, psychophysiology, discrimination, stigma, prejudice, stereotyping, stress and health, self-regulation

Marcelo Wood, Ph.D.

Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Epigenetics, memory, drug addiction, synaptic plasticity, aging, mouse models, physiology

Xiangmin Xu, Ph.D.

Professor
Anatomy and Neurobiology

Neural circuits, cell-type specific, electrophysiology, imaging, optical stimulation

Michael Yassa, Ph.D.

Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior

Learning, memory, aging, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, cross-species neuroimaging, clinical trials

Alyson K. Zalta, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Psychological Science
School of Social Ecology

Trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder, transdiagnostic, resilience, prevention & treatment

External Fellows

Ted Abel, Ph.D.

Professor
Molecular Physiology
University of Iowa

Mammalian hippocampus, long-term memory storage, psychiatric disorders, neurodevelopment disorders, neuronal circuits, behavioral epigenomics, sleep, memory

Timothy Allen, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Psychology
Florida International University

Learning & memory, episodic memory, behavioral neuroscience, comparative neuroscience, in vivo electrophysiology, network oscillations, circuit analysis, anatomical tracing, hippocampus, nucleus reuniens, thalamus, medial prefrontal cortex

Stephan Anagnostaras, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Psychology
University of California, San Diego

Michel Baudry, Ph.D.

Professor
Biomedical Sciences
Western University

Synaptic plasticity, learning and memory, calpain, neurodegeneration, traumatic brain injury, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, Angelman Syndrome

 

 

Francesco Battaglia, Ph.D.

Professor
Donders Institute for Brain
Cognition and Behaviour
Radboud University Nijmegen

Neural dynamics, sleep, criticality, analysis of neural data, memory, learning

Federico Bermudez-Rattoni, Ph.D.

Professor
Cognitive Neurosciences
National Autonomous University of Mexico

Memory, Alzheimer's disease, neuronal networks, cognitive neuroscience, dopaminergic circuits, catecholaminergic activity.

Kasia Bieszczad, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Psychology
Rutgers University-New Brunswick

Auditory cortex, tonotopic map, sensory physiology, behavioral psychology, epigenetics, histone acetylation, representational plasticity

 

Jennifer Bizon, Ph.D.

Professor and Chair,
Co-Director
Cognitive Aging and Memory Center
University of Florida

Cognition, memory, decision making, brain aging, Alzheimer's disease

 

Timothy Bredy, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Queensland Brain Institute
University of Queensland, Australia

Memory, fear, extinction, PTSD, phobia, epigenetics, non-coding RNA, RNA modification, epitranscriptomics, DNA structure, activity-dependent gene expression

 

Sara Burke, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Neuroscience
University of Florida

Aging, entorhinal cortex, hippocampus, memory, neurophysiology, perirhinal cortex

Robert Clark, Ph.D.

Professor
Psychiatry
University of California, San Diego

Hippocampus and memory, recognition memory, classical conditioning, science history, spatial memory

Laura Colgin, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Neuroscience
University of Texas, Austin

Learning, brain rhythms, memory, hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, schizophrenia, autism, Alzheimer's disease

Laura DeNardo, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Physiology
UCLA

Neurodevelopment, Learning and Memory, Neural Circuits, Neural plasticity, Anxiety Disorders, Early Life Stress

Michael Fanselow, Ph.D.

Professor
Psychology
University of California, Los Angeles

Fear, learning, PTSD, stress, anxiety

Joaquin Fuster, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor
Psychology
University of California, Los Angeles

Brain stroke, brain trauma, Alzheimer's dementia, and schizophrenia

Paul Gold, Ph.D.

Professor
Biology
Syracuse University

Aging; cell signaling and communication; learning, memory, and plasticity; neurological and psychiatric conditions

Michael Hasselmo, Ph.D.

Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences
Director, Center for Systems Neuroscience
Boston University

Acetylcholine, episodic memory, theta rhythm, entorhinal cortex, medial septum, hippocampus, retrosplenial cortex, presynaptic inhibition, spike frequency accommodation, persistent spiking

Alicia Izquierdo, Ph.D.

Professor
Behavioral Neuroscience
University of California, Los Angeles

Reward learning, flexible learning, value-based decision making, learning under uncertainty, chemogenetics, in vivo recording and imaging

Ivan Izquierdo, Ph.D.

Professor
Neuroscience
Pontífica Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Passing of Ivan Izquierdo

Barbara Knowlton, Ph.D.

Professor
Psychology
University of California, Los Angeles

Implicit learning, skill learning, episodic memory, cognitive neuroscience, aging, habit learning, reward

Jill Leutgeb, Ph.D.

Professor
Biological Sciences
University of California, San Diego

Stefan Leutgeb, Ph.D.

Professor
Biological Sciences
University of California, San Diego

Jack Lin, M.D.

Professor
Neurology
University of California, Davis

Emotional processing, learning and memory, epilepsy, clinical neurophysiology, electrocorticography

Stephen Maren, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor and Charles H. Gregory Chair of Liberal Arts
Texas A&M University

Emotional learning and memory, hippocampus, amygdala, prefrontal cortex, fear conditioning, extinction, context-specific behavior

Kelsey Martin, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor
Biological Chemistry
University of California, Los Angeles

 

Synaptic plasticity, gene expression, local translation, synapse formation, transcription, cell signaling, autism, neuronal cell biology, intracellular trafficking.

Aaron Mattfeld, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Psychology
Florida International University

Learning and memory, development, neurodevelopment disorders, ADHD, teaching practices, diagnosis and treatment of developmental disorders

Andrew Maurer, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Neuroscience
University of Florida

Aging, entorhinal cortex, hippocampus, memory, neurophysiology, perirhinal cortex

Mark Mayford, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Neuroscience
University of California, San Diego

Kalina J. Michalska, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Psychology
UC Riverside

Richard Morris, Ph.D.

Professor
Neuroscience
University of Edinburgh

Synapses, Circuits and Behaviour

Lara Rangel, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Cognitive Science
UC San Diego

Rhythmic coordination of brain activity, information processing in neural networks, dynamic interactions between neurons, learning, memory, neuromodulation.

Charan Ranganath, Ph.D.

Professor
Psychology
University of California, Davis

EEG, fMRI, eye-tracking, patient research, intracranial recording, tDCS, salivating dogs

Benno Roozendaal, Ph.D.

Professor
Donders Institute for Brain
Cognition and Behaviour
Radboud University Medical Center

Stress, emotional arousal, learning and memory, amygdala, hippocampus, post-traumatic stress disorder

Barry Setlow, Ph.D.

Professor
Psychiatry
University of Florida

Addiction, diazepam, neurobiology, neuroscience, nicotine

Melissa Sharpe, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Psychology
University of California, Los Angeles

Dopamine, Lateral Hypothalamus, Reinforcement Learning, Behavioral Neuroscience, Optogenetics

Alcino Silva, Ph.D.

Professor
Psychology
University of California, Los Angeles

Memory, aging, Neurofibromatosis type I, Noonan syndrome, Recovery, memory linking, memory allocation, hippocampus, amygdala, researchmaps, Tuberous Sclerosis, memory structures

Christine N. Smith, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Psychiatry
University of California, San Diego
Learning, memory, mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease, cognitive neuroscience, behavioral neuroscience, patients, amnesia, retrograde memory, neuroimaging, eye tracking

Ivan Soltesz, Ph.D.

Professor
Neuroscience
Stanford University

Inhibition, synaptic plasticity, cannabinoids, neuronal microcircuits, in vivo imaging, electrophysiology, computational modeling

Larry Squire, Ph.D.

Professor
Psychiatry
University of California, San Diego

Robert James Sutherland, Ph.D.

Professor and Chair in the Department of Neuroscience
Board of Governors Research Chair in Neuroscience
Director, Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience
University of Lethbridge

 

Wendy Suzuki, Ph.D.

Professor
Neural Science
New York University

Memory, hippocampus physical activity, brain plasticity, anxiety, Alzheimer's disease

Brian Wiltgen, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Psychology
University of California, Davis