Graduate Faculty
Below is a list of faculty who host Systems and Cellular Neuroscience students to complete a PhD in their laboratory. Look for the Red text below each faculty member’s research description to see if they are actively recruiting for this admissions cycle.
All Program Faculty
Dr. Michael Burton
Research Description: Peripheral to CNS communication: Emphasis on pain, depression and metabolism.
Keywords: Neuroimmunology, pain, pharmacology, behavior, metabolism
Neuroimmunology and Behavior Lab
michael.burton@utdallas.edu
Recruiting for 2025
Dr. Gregory Dussor
Chairperson, Neuroscience
Research Description: Pain, with an emphasis on chronic headache disorders such as migraine.
Keywords: Pain, behavior, physiology, migraine, genomics
Pain Neurobiology Research Group gregory.dussor1@utdallas.edu
Dr. Andrew Eagle
Research Description: Hippocampal and entorhinal cortex neurocircuitry of addiction and motivated behavior
Keywords: Addiction, learning and memory, basic science research, neuromodulation andrew.eagle@utdallas.edu
Recruiting for 2025
Dr. Crystal Engineer
Research Description: Auditory processing, autism spectrum disorders, plasticity, speech perception and neuromodulation.
Keywords: Behavior, neuroplasticity, physiology, autism
Engineer Lab – Texas Biomedical Device Center crystalengineer@utdallas.edu
Recruiting for 2025
Dr. Zirong Gu
Research Description: Exploring how basal ganglia outputs interact with other brain regions to select, initiate, and execute motivated behavior in both health and disease.
Keywords: Single-cell sequencing, viral tracing, unsupervised behavioral clustering, Cal-light tagging, closed-loop neuromodulation, computational approaches, obsessive-compulsive disorder, neurodegeneration zirong.gu@utdallas.edu
Recruiting for 2025
Dr. Michael Kilgard
Research Description: Targeted neural plasticity for the treatment of stroke, autism, brain and spinal cord damage, PTSD, tinnitus and pain.
Keywords: Neuromodulation, neurological disease, human testing, behavior, bioengineering
Cortical Plasticity Lab michael.kilgard@utdallas.edu
Recruiting for 2025
Dr. Benedict Kolber
Director, Graduate Neuroscience
Research Description: Pain with an emphasis on stress adaptation, depression and drug discovery.
Keywords: Behavior, pain, pharmacology, physiology, drug discovery, depression, anxiety
Pain Stress Lab benedict.kolber@utdallas.edu
Recruiting for 2025
Dr. Sven Kroener
Research Description: Physiology of the prefrontal cortex as it relates to motivated behavior and drug addiction.
Keywords: Physiology, addiction, behavior, schizophrenia
Cellular and Synaptic Physiology Lab sven.kroener@utdallas.edu
Dr. Christa McIntyre Rodriguez
Research Description: Stress and memory; therapy for memory and anxiety disorders
Keywords: Memory, stress, behavior, nerve stimulation, fear
Dr. Lena Nguyen
Research Description: Cortical development and molecular mechanisms of epilepsy and neurodevelopmental disorders
Keywords: Neurodevelopment, cerebral cortex, epilepsy, translational control, mTOR signaling lena.nguyen@utdallas.edu
Recruiting for 2025
Dr. Puja Parekh
Research Description: Neural circuit basis and individual differences in the regulation of effortful motivated behavior in healthy states and disease-relevant models.
Keywords: Rodent behavior, stress, optogenetics, in vivo imaging, transcriptomics, pharmacology Parekh Lab puja.parekh@utdallas.edu
Recruiting for 2025
Dr. Theodore Price
Research Description: Molecular mechanisms that cause pain to become chronic; therapy development.
Keywords: Pain, behavior, physiology, transcriptomics, drug discovery
Pain Neurobiology Research Group theodore.price@utdallas.edu
Recruiting for 2025
Dr. Robert Rennaker
Research Description: Targeted plasticity therapy, medical device development, neuro injury and repair.
Keywords: Bioengineering, neurological injury, nerve stimulation, stroke
Dr. Millie Rincón-Cortés
Research Description: Normative and stress-induced plasticity of reward and mesolimbic dopamine function, emphasis on early development and the postpartum period.
Keywords: Behavioral neuroscience, development, adversity, social, dopamine, maternal brain
Developmental and Maternal Neurobiology Lab millie.rincon-cortes@utdallas.edu
Recruiting for 2025
Dr. Katelyn Sadler
Research Description: Gut-brain circuits in chronic pain conditions; central nervous system modulation of sickle cell disease pain
Keywords: Pain, interoception, microbiome, behavior, psysiology, sickle cell disease
Gut, Brain, Pain Lab katelyn.sadler@utdallas.edu
Recruiting for 2025
Dr. Steven Small
Research Description: Neurobiology of language
Keywords: Language, computational neuroscience, neuroimaging
Faculty Profile small@utdallas.edu
Recruiting for 2025
Dr. Ana Solodkin
Research Description: Biomarkers of neurological disease via neuroinformatics
Keywords: Bioinformatics, neurological disease, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke
Dr. Diana Tavares Ferreira
Research Description: Cellular and molecular mechanisms of axonal integrity; studying the role of RNA transport and non-coding RNAs in neuropathies and neurodegenerative diseases using multi-omics and computational approaches.
Keywords: Computational approaches, transcriptomics, neurodegeneration, axonal transport, microRNAs
Axon Biology and Neuroinformatics Lab diana.tavaresferreira@utdallas.edu
Recruiting for 2025
Dr. Catherine Thorn
Research Description: Motor and habit learning, with an emphasis on the role neuromodulators in motor system plasticity.
Keywords: learning and memory, motor cortex, basal ganglia, noradrenaline, dopamine
Motor and Habit Learning Lab catherine.thorn@utdallas.edu
Recruiting for 2025
Affiliated Research Faculty
Dr. Seth Hays
Research Description: Use of vagus nerve stimulation to target neuroplasticity and treat disease.
Keywords: Bioengineering, neuroplasticity, behavior
Dr. Tae Hoon Kim
Research Description: Bioinformatics and functional genomics for regulation of neurological disease.
Keywords: Transcription, genomics, pain, neurological disease
Dr. Lloyd Lumata
Research Description: Imaging and biochemistry of glioblastoma and other cancers.
Keywords: Neuroimaging, brain cancer, MRI
The LUMATA Group: Hyperpolarized Magnetic Resonance lloyd.lumata@utdallas.edu
Dr. Joseph Pancrazio
Research Description: Development and testing of novel neural interface technology for in vivo and in vitro.
Keywords: Bioengineering, neural interfaces, cell biology, physiology
Neuronal Networks and Interfaces Lab joseph.pancrazio@utdallas.edu
Dr. Darshan Sapkota
Research Description: Protein variants generated from alternative start and stop sites on mRNAs and their significance in brain function and disease.
Keywords: Neurodegenerative disease, mRNA translation, stop codon readthrough, molecular biology
Dr. Adrianna Shembel
Research Description: Effects of increased neuromuscular demands on the voice; neurological and sensorimotor voice disorders.
Keywords: Laryngeal Disorders, musculoskeletal, neuromuscular, vocal demands
Integrative Laryngeal BioPhysiology Lab adrianna.shembel@utdallas.edu
Recruiting for 2025
