Faculty

• Warren Bickel

  Professor in the VTCRI, Director of the Addiction Recovery Research Center and Professor of Psychology in the College of Science at Virginia Tech

  Fundamental to solving the problem of addiction and other dysfunctional health behavior is to understand how an individual continues to engage in a behavior despite ...

• Pearl Chiu

  Assistant Professor in the VTCRI and of Psychology in the College of Science at Virginia Tech

  How is it that a depressed individual may value nothing at all, whereas an addict might value drug consumption at the expense of all else? ...

• Harry Dorn

  Professor in the VTCRI and of Chemistry in the College of Science at Virginia Tech

  For nearly 40 years, Dr. Dorn has made pioneering developments in joining high-performance liquid chromatography with nuclear magnetic resonance to form a technique that has ...

• Quentin Fischer

  Research Assistant Professor in the VTCRI

  The adult brain is capable of considerable functional reorganization often manifest as long term modification of synaptic strength (strengthening as long term potentiation or LTP, ...

• Christopher Franck

  Research Assistant Professor in the VTCRI; Assistant Director of the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Statistical Analysis (LISA), Virginia Tech

  My research interests lie in the fields of statistics and biostatistics. In collaborative research the role of the statistician begins as soon as a research ...

• Michael Friedlander

  Founding Executive Director of the VTCRI, Professor of Biological Sciences in the College of Science and adjunct Professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering and Science at Virginia Tech

  My research program is directed at understanding the processes that regulate alterations in synaptic efficiency between neurons within the cerebral cortex – synaptic plasticity - ...

• Robert Gourdie

  Professor and Commonwealth Research Commercialization Fund Eminent Scholar in Heart Regenerative Medicine Research, VTCRI; Director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine Research, VTCRI

  Dr. Gourdie is also a professor of biomedical engineering and science in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech.

• Ann Harvey

  Research Scientist in the VTCRI

  I am a research scientist at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. My duties include conducting research as well as coordinating the Roanoke Brain Study. ...

• Hodja Kalikulov

  Research Assistant Professor in the VTCRI

  Synaptic plasticity is widely considered to be a cellular mechanism underlying learning and memory. Intracellular calcium signaling plays a key role in the regulation of ...

• Mohammad Kayali

  Research Assistant Professor

• Debbie Kelly

  Assistant Professor in the VTCRI and of Biological Sciences in the College of Science at Virginia Tech

  My research focuses on developing innovative methodologies to study complex biological machinery. In particular, I am interested in using a combination of structural and functional ...

• Brooks King-Casas

  Assistant Professor in the VTCRI and of Psychology in the College of Science at Virginia Tech

  My lab addresses two broad areas of inquiry: (i) neural basis of valuation and learning in social settings, and, (ii) abnormalities of social valuation. We ...

• Ulrich Kirk

  Research Assistant Professor

  My area of research investigates the neurobiology of self-regulation in valuation and decision-making, and more recently the interaction of emotional processes on choice and motivation. ...

• Ken Kishida

  Research Scientist

  I am interested in neurobiological signals associated with conscious experience, social cognition, and decision-making in humans. My research has been framed by questions regarding the ...

• Mikhail Koffarnus

  Research Assistant Professor

  My research focuses on understanding drug abuse and developing drug abuse treatments from behavioral economic and pharmacological perspectives. Decision-making processes are often disrupted in drug ...

• Leslie LaConte

  Assistant Professor

  Leslie’s research interests lie in the field of structural biology. Working with Konark Mukherjee, she is currently investigating proteins found in the presynaptic active zone ...

• Stephen LaConte

  Assistant Professor in the VTCRI and of Biomedical Engineering and Science in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech

  Research in the LaConte lab is devoted to advanced neuroimaging acquisition and data analysis approaches, aimed at understanding and rehabilitating neurological and psychiatric diseases. A ...

• Terry Lohrenz

  Research Assistant Professor in the VTCRI

  Terry Lohrenz is a member of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and Computational Psychiatry Unit. He was trained as a mathematician and spent time in the ...

• Sarah McDonald

  Assistant Professor in the VTCRI and of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech

  Understanding how viruses evolve as they replicate and spread in the human population is fundamentally important for effective disease control. Viruses with segmented, RNA genomes ...

• Read Montague

  Director, Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and Computational Psychiatry Unit, Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute; Professor, Department of Physics, Virginia Tech

  Read Montague is the founding director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and the Computational Psychiatry Unit of the VTCRI. Montague’s work centers broadly on human ...

• Konark Mukherjee

  Assistant Professor in the VTCRI and of Biological Sciences in the College of Science at Virginia Tech

  The role of MAGUK ( Membrane Associated Guanylate Kinase) proteins in neurodevelopment. Neurodevelopment proceeds through a series of events culminating into formation of productive neuronal ...

• Sharon Ramey

  Professor and Distinguished VTC Research Scholar in the VTCRI and Research Professor in the Department of Psychology at Virginia Tech

  My research addresses three major areas of human development: (1) the contribution of early experience, starting even prior to conception and extending through the prenatal ...

• Craig Ramey

  Professor and Distinguished VTC Research Scholar in the VTCRI and Research Professor in the Department of Psychology at Virginia Tech

  My program of research centers on the role of experience – across the human lifespan - in the development of competence, as closely linked to ...

• Ignacio Sáez

  Research Assistant Professor in the VTCRI

  I am interested in the study of human cognition, and especially in the role of the neurotransmitter dopamine in valuation and decision-making mechanisms. I plan ...

• Zhi Sheng

  Assistant Professor in the VTCRI and of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech

  Glioblastoma, a lethal and incurable brain cancer, often recurs after conventional therapies such as resection, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy, possibly because cancer stem cells in ...

• Jamie Tyler

  Assistant Professor in the VTCRI and of Biomedical Engineering and Science in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech

  Jamie Tyler studies fundamental properties of synaptic transmission, how these properties are modified by experience, and how best to control neuronal activity for making nervous ...

• Gregorio Valdez

  Assistant Professor in the VTCRI and of Biological Sciences in the College of Science at Virginia Tech

  While at Harvard University, Dr. Gregorio Valdez and colleagues described the effects of aging, exercise, and caloric restriction on the peripheral synapses (the neuromuscular junction). ...

• Jianping Wu

  Research Assistant Professor