Post Doctoral Fellowship, Neurogenetics
University of Pennsylvania (2012)

Doctor of Philosophy, Neuroscience
Georgetown University (2007)

Bachelor of Science, Biology
West Virginia University (2002)

Research Interests

My research aims to understand the biology underlying the low success rates of smoking quitters. To do this, I investigate the genomic alterations resulting from chronic nicotine administration and withdrawal using ChIP-Seq and RNA-Seq technologies and how these changes impact both behavior as well as the concordant transcriptionally-driven circuitry adaptations. These altered preclinical genomic targets observed following chronic treatment and withdrawal are then candidates for SNP analysis in the smoking population.

In addition to understanding the key genomic mechanisms of nicotine dependence and withdrawal phenotypes, I am interested in how we might apply this knowledge to advance personalized medicine.