Council Bios

President

Jill McGaughy

University of New Hampshire

Durham, NH, USA

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Dr. McGaughy received her BA from Bradley University in her home state of Illinois, and her MA and Ph.D. from the Ohio State University. After a post-doc at the University of Cambridge with Barry Everitt and Trevor Robbins on a long-term fellowship from the Human Frontier Science Program, she completed a second post-doc at Boston University with Howard Eichenbaum and Michael Hasselmo. She joined the faculty at University of New Hampshire in 2004 where she is currently a Professor of Psychology, the coordinator of the Neuroscience and Behavior Program, and a faculty fellow in the Engagement and Faculty Development Office.

Her research has centered on understanding the neural circuits underlying attention during development and how these circuits are disrupted in major neuropsychiatric disorders. To improve the translational value of rodent models of attention, she has developed three novel paradigms to assess sustained attention, divided attention and conflict monitoring. Her lab has used these tasks to 1. Provide evidence of analogous function between that sub-regions of the prefrontal cortex in rats and primates 2. Identify the unique attentional impairments produced by early life insults. Recently they have shown that prenatal protein malnutrition (PPM) alters corticopetal noradrenergic systems and produces cognitive rigidity in rats similar to that found in humans after PPM.  Because PPM remains a leading cause of emotional and cognitive impairments in adults, these studies are expected to inform treatment of many major neuropsychiatric disorders. She collaborates with psychiatrists, Janina Galler at Harvard Medical School and primatologists, Doug Rosene at Boston University Medical Center, and Jerome Sallet at Oxford University to continually strengthen the translational validity of her research. Her work has been funded by the National Institute of Health and published in top-tier journals e.g. Biological Psychiatry and the Journal of Neuroscience.

She has been an actively involved IBNS member since 2016, organizing symposia and recruiting international colleagues to attend meetings and currently serves on the Program Committee. She enjoys the collegial atmosphere of the meeting, emphasis on great science and the active support of young scientists. Her experience in a variety of universities, from massive research institutions like the University of Cambridge to smaller universities like Bradley University, gives her an appreciation for the importance of linking researchers from both communities to fill critical gaps in the training of scientists. IBNS is an ideal environment to make these connections that benefit faculty and students alike. Her work in faculty development has provided insights into ways to increase both the recruitment and retention of more diverse faculty, to support faculty throughout their careers and to foster cross-disciplinary collaborations. As President-Elect of IBNS, she will work to use her faculty development skills to build on the excellent foundation provided by IBNS to support scientists at all stages of career development. Moreover, she plans to continue to increase outreach to international scholars to emphasize the unique opportunities provided by IBNS to connect to top-tier research in the field in an environment that encourages cross-disciplinary thinking and fosters international collaborations.

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President-Elect

Jill Silverman
MIND Institute / UC Davis School of Medicine
Sacramento, CA, USA

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Jill Silverman IBNS is and will always be special to me.  I have been a dedicated member for over a decade and watched IBNS remain strong, grow, and thrive through the hardships of “failure to translate” in neuropsychiatric disease and sadly watched behavior take the blame.  My lab strives to perform successful translational research using behavior to study neuropsychiatric disorders.  My colleagues and I have published extensively on rigor, reproducibility, standardization, and intra- and inter-laboratory reproducibility.  I see IBNS as THE professional society that will bring bench-to-bedside science into reality.  For successful translation to clinical trials, in vivo behavior and animal models will always be essential.  My vision of IBNS is as a highly active, vocal, greatly diverse, unified, and a well-respected society.  I played as major role as co-Investigator on the NIH R13 grant award “Promoting Diversity and Inclusion for the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society” for which the was to have dedicated funding for awards/events to target and broaden the Under-Represented Minorities of the IBNS. 

I am working diligently to ensure we do not lose a generation of behavioral experts because the cell-type specific and tech-savvy proposals are rewarded while those that are heavily behavioral are considered “not innovative” despite their ability to accelerate biomedical research.  The idea that complex, heterogenous disorders, such as schizophrenia and autism, would be explained by a single cell subtype or single synaptic circuit is much too reductionist for this translational researcher.  I remain committed to improving mental health and lessening symptom severity for affected individuals by these debilitating behavioral disorders and believe that behavioral science is irreplaceable. 

My qualifications are exemplary.  I have 20+ years of experience with rodent model systems.  I trained in behavioral phenotyping mouse models within the NIMH under past president Dr. Jacqueline Crawley, where I fell in love with behavior, and it was then I knew how I wanted to spend the rest of my career.  In 2012, I joined the faculty of the UC Davis MIND Institute and expanded and grew our genetic mouse program to genetic and environmental exposure rat models.  We expanded our in vivo phenotype analyses to incorporate MRI, EEG, sleep, and circadian rhythms.  I frequently review grant applications for the NIH, Rare Disease Foundations, and the Autism Science Foundation.  I am on multiple Editorial Boards and am an Associate Editor at Molecular Autism.  I am fortunate to have funding for my laboratory at each level, even in this dire funding climate. 

IBNS is therefore where I hope to be of the most service.  I have served as co-Chair and Chair of the Training and Education Committee, as a core leader of the Fundraising and Finance Committee, which led to the R13, served on the Council in multiple roles and elected a Fellow.  Now, I am honored to be considered for the role of President-Elect. 

Treasurer

Carlos Bolaños
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX, USA

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Carlos Bolaños is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the Texas A&M University. He is a behavioral neuroscientist specializing in the neurobiology of neuropsychiatric disorders. His work aims at establishing causal relationships between early-life experiences, brain, and behavior. The research in his laboratory centers on investigating how exposure to drugs (stimulants, antidepressants), and stress (whether physical or emotional), alter the biochemical integrity of brain pathways involved in the regulation of mood and motivated behaviors, and how these pharmacological, environmental, and/or genetic manipulations early-in-life affect biochemical and behavioral functioning later in adulthood. Carlos attended his first IBNS meeting in 2001 and has organized several symposiums and has served as regional representative to the Planning Committee. He currently serves in the Program and the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committees. He is a Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) and a member of the Editorial Boards for the journals Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science and Neuropsychopharmacology. He received his doctorate from Northeastern University in 2000 and postdoctoral work at Yale University and the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX.

Records Councilor

Molly Kent
Virginia Military Institute
Lexington, VA, USA

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Molly Kent is an Assistant Professor of Biology at Virginia Military Institute. She earned her doctoral degree in Neuroscience from University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign and did her postdoctoral training in the field of stress and resilience under the guidance of Kelly Lambert at Randolph Macon College and University of Richmond. Dr. Kent attended her first IBNS meeting in 2015, has helped to organize symposium sessions and contributed to the Education and Training Committee as well as the Program Committee. Her lab studies the effects of aggression, stress and resilience in Betta fish as well as sex differences in brain and behavior of the Three-spined Stickleback. Due to amazing mentorship throughout her career, Dr. Kent is devoted to creating and conducting research opportunities for undergraduates through collaborations and non-mammalian model organisms. Dr. Kent is a member of Society for Neuroscience (IBNS) and IBNS. 

Africa

Martin Job
Cooper Medical School
of Rowan University
Camden, New Jersey
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I am from Nigeria, West Africa. My dream to be a scientist started very early in life, inspired by my father who was a university professor. I was also encouraged by my university professors to pursue a career as an academic. With strong convictions in myself and in my dreams, I immigrated to the United States after obtaining a bachelor’s of pharmacy degree. I obtained a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Texas at Austin. I went on to conduct post-doctoral research at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where I worked to characterize the role of CART peptide on psychostimulant activity. I also concluded post-doctoral research work at the National Institutes on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Intramural Research Program, Baltimore, where I did some work using behavioral economic principles and chemogenetic techniques to understand psychostimulant use disorders using rat models. I have published seventeen manuscripts, with twelve of them as first, sole or corresponding author.

I joined the department of biomedical sciences at the CMSRU in 2019. My research focus is to understand behavioral correlates of motivated behavior in individuals. I am also interested in diversity in science and I have been involved in several diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at CMSRU. I joined IBNS in 2020. If elected as a representative to the IBNS Council for Africa, I will work hard to be a voice for both IBNS and the African scientist. I believe that I can have an impact in IBNS even as it impacts the world. 

Asia

Yasushi Kiyokawa
The University of Tokyo
Tokyo, Japan
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Yasushi Kiyokawa is an Associate Professor at Laboratory of Veterinary Ethology, The University of Tokyo, Japan and has been aiming to understand rats’ mode of life by analyses at the individual level of lab and wild rats. After studying Veterinary Medicine at The University of Tokyo and obtaining a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree, as is common in Japan he continued his research at the same laboratory and received his Ph.D. in 2006. He then worked as a Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, an Assistant Professor, and became an Associate Professor in 2019 at this laboratory.

When Dr. Kiyokawa first attended the IBNS meeting held at Rio de Janeiro in 2007, he was fascinated not only by high scientific quality of presentations but was also attracted by the warm atmosphere of the Society. Although he could not attend to IBNS2019, he has made presentations every yearly IBNS meeting since then. In addition, he served as a member of Education & Training committee from 2012 to 2015, Local Organizing Committee for IBNS 2017, and Program committee since 2019 and as an Australasian Councilor since 2018. In recognition of his contributions to the Society, he was awarded Fellow status in 2012.

If elected, one of his goals is to increase the number of Japanese and Asian member of the society. In addition, he is aiming to maintain and improve the atmosphere of the Society to encourage young researchers to pursuit their research interests in the field.

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Australasia / Oceania

Jess Nithianantharajah
University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia
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My research interests lie in understanding the role of synaptic genes in cognition and disease. I have 20 years research experience in molecular, cellular and behavioral neuroscience. I am passionate about advocating for fundamental discovery neuroscience as an essential engine for medical translation.

I was born in Sri Lanka, but immigrated to Australia when I was 8 years old. I completed my doctorate in behavioral neuroscience at the University of Melbourne, and commenced postdoctoral training at the Howard Florey Institute investigating gene-environment interactions on neural plasticity. I was then recruited to the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge UK during which time I held a joint appointment at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge UK investigating cognitive behavior in mouse models of synaptic gene dysfunction relevant to neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders. I relocated to the University of Edinburgh, before returning to Melbourne as an independent group leader at The Florey Institute.

Since attending my first IBNS meeting, I continue to be inspired by the collegiality of the Society’s members, and its dedication to nurturing connections between members across all career levels. I have been a member of the IBNS Membership & Communications Committee since 2019, and feel strongly about representation and the inclusion of diverse voices. As an active member of national societies including the Australasian Neuroscience Society, Australian Brain Alliance and SfN Melbourne Chapter, I am committed to working with IBNS to ensure Australasian neuroscience remains engaged and continues to thrive with the Society.

Europe

Özge Sungur
Philipps-University  of Marburg
Marburg, Germany
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Özge Sungur, PhD Behavioral Neuroscience, Philipps University Marburg Özge Sungur is a postdoctoral researcher in the Behavioral Neuroscience Department at Philipps University Marburg. She earned her BS in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. In 2008 she relocated to Germany to begin her neuroscience journey and earned her MS in Neuroscience at Magdeburg University and later her PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience at Marburg University. Her current research focuses on neurobehavioral analysis of genetic animal models for neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders. Her research interest further concerns changes at molecular levels associated with the pathology of neurodevelopmental disorders that may underlie behavioral deficits. Currently she’s involved in the projects “Treatment Expectation” and “Neurobiology of Affective Disorders”, next to active collaborations with other labs. The 2016 meeting in Budapest was when Özge got to know IBNS, thanks to the travel grant she received that year. Although the symposium she organized could not take place due to the unfortunate pandemic, she’s actively working on making it happen during next year’s meeting. Apart from rodent ultrasounds, she’s interested in classical Turkish music. Özge is also a member of ALBA Network that promotes equity and diversity in brain sciences.

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Europe

Markus Fendt

Otto-von-Guericke University

Magdeburg, Germany

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Dr. Fendt is a group leader and adjunct professor at the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Medical Faculty, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany. He studied biology and received his Ph.D. from the University of Tübingen, Germany. After a 2-year postdoc period, he became a junior group leader in Tübingen, where he also obtained his habilitation on animal physiology in 2002. In 2006, Markus joined Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research in Basel, Switzerland, as a senior research investigator in the Neuropsychiatry unit. After the closure of this unit in 2012, he decided to go back to academic research and accepted his current position in Magdeburg, where he now has a research group with the current main focus on the role of different neuropeptides in behavioral endophenotypes of neuropsychiatric diseases (using rodent models). Current projects: Neuropharmacological mechanisms of event learning; Orexin’s role in mouse behavioral endophenotypes for neuropsychiatric diseases; Social transmission of fear & ultrasonic vocalization; Neuropharmacology of cognitive flexibility; Role of G-protein coupled receptors in innate and learned fear.

Markus attended his first IBNS meeting 2004 in Key West. Since then, he has attended nine IBNS meetings and also organized symposia at several meetings.

 In his downtime, he enjoys bird watching, running and reading.

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South America

Claudio Da Cunha

Universidade Federal
do Parana
Curitiba, Brazil
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Dr. Da Cunha has been an active member of the Brazilian Society for Neuroscience (SBNeC), IBNS, and SfN. He received BSc. in Biology, and MSc degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Brasília (UNB, Brazil), Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR, Brazil), and the Livre Docência in Psychobiology title from the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP, Brazil). His training in Neuroscience was carried out as a student, postdoc, and visiting Professor in the laboratories of Professors Ivan Izquierdo (Brazil), Jorge Medina (Argentina), James L. McGaugh (USA), Susan Wonnacott (UK), Charles D. Blaha (USA), and Detlef Heck (USA). Since 1992 he has been full Professor at the Department of Pharmacology and in 2015 was promoted to Professor Titular (comparable to Distinguished Professor in the USA) at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR, Curitiba, Brazil). In the last, his main contributions to science were to establish a rat model to study cognitive deficits of Parkinson’s disease, which he used to study the roles of the substantia nigra and dopamine receptors in learning and memory aversively and appetitively motivated tasks. In addition, he contributed to the elucidation of the role of the dorsal and ventral striatum in action selection and expression of motivated behaviors. More currently, he has been studying the attenuation of the effects of stimulant drugs on tonic and phasic striatal dopamine.

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North America

Greg Carr
Lieber Institute for Brain Development
Baltimore, MD, USA
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Gregory Carr I am a Lead Investigator within the Drug Discovery and Development Group of the Lieber Institute for Brain Development (LIBD) and an Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. My lab at the LIBD utilizes rodent behavioral models to identify potential novel therapeutics for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders. I received my PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania. Immediately prior to joining the LIBD, I was a postdoctoral fellow in the Clinical Brain Disorders Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, MD and an adjunct instructor in the Department of Biology at Howard University. I have been a member of IBNS since 2014 and I have served the Society as a member of the Ethics and Diversity and Program Committees since 2019. I also served as the 2021 Program Co-Chair and 2022 Program Chair. As an IBNS Councilor, I plan to continue to work to expand the size and reach of the Society, with a particular focus on diversity and inclusion-related initiatives

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North America

Gina Quirarte
Instituto de Neurobiología, Universidad Nacional
Autónoma de México, Campus Juriquilla Querétaro
Queretaro, Mexico
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Gina L. Quirarte is Associate Professor at the Institute of Neurobiology, National Autonomous University of México (UNAM) and the principal investigator of the Learning and Memory Laboratory. She obtained the BSc degree at University of Guadalajara, México, and did her Masters´ and PH.D. studies at Faculty of Medicine, UNAM, with Mención Honorífica (highest award for academic achievement), and had a post-doctoral appointment at the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, California. She was recipient of the “Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz” UNAM award in 2018. She attended the First IBNS Conference (1992) in San Antonio, Texas, and her most recent contribution to this society was last year as a Keynote speaker in Puerto Vallarta, México. She has been very active in scientific societies, she was the secretary of the Mexican Society of Physiological Sciences, she co-organized and promoted programs such as the Minority Health and Health Disparities International Research Training (MHIRT) and the Latin American Training Program of the Society for Neuroscience.

She has contributed more than 90 peer-reviewed articles and chapters and has delivered over 50 lectures and symposia presentations. She is strongly involved in teaching graduate and undergraduate courses and had directed over 45 theses. She is a member of the National Research System of México, in its top category, and of the Mexican Academy of Sciences, and sits at several national and international academic committees. She serves as ad hoc reviewer for neuroscience journals. Recently she was guest editor for Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. Her current research interests include the study of glucocorticoid modulation of memory consolidation of aversive learning, and the involvement of protein synthesis in enhanced learning.

North America

Erica Glasper
University of Maryland
College Park, Maryland
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I earned a doctoral degree from The Ohio State University (OSU), where I investigated the psychobiological determinants of health, with an emphasis on how social bonding could ameliorate negative neurobiological outcomes. Following this, I completed two postdoctoral fellowships in behavioral neuroscience at Princeton University. The first was supported by the United Negro College Fund – Merck Science Initiative to study the effects of stress, resilience, and hippocampal plasticity and the second was an individual NRSA from NIH to study the extent to which rewarding experiences protect the aging brain. Upon the completion of my postdoctoral training, I joined the faculty of the Department of Psychology at the University of Maryland (UMD), where I opened the Behavioral Neuroendocrinology Lab, which examines the effects of experiences (early-life experiences, parental behavior, mating, aging) on behavior (affect, cognition, and decision making), structural plasticity (adult neurogenesis; dendritic morphology), integrative markers of central and peripheral immune function (qPCR; enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay), and endocrine state (hormone assessment using radioimmunoassay and ELISA) using a number of rodent models. In this role, I have trained a number of graduate students and provided meaningful research experiences to a host of undergraduate students. Currently, I hold the rank of Associate Professor of Psychology and serve as an Associate Chair and Director of Admissions for the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science graduate training program at UMD. In September of 2021, I will return to OSU where I will be faculty within the Department of Neuroscience and the Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research.

North America

Janine Kwapis

Pennsylvania State University

Sacramento, CA, USA
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Dr. Kwapis earned her Ph.D. in behavioral neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and completed a postdoc in molecular neuroscience at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Kwapis has been involved in IBNS since 2017 and has been chair of two symposium sessions in this time. Her lab studies the epigenetic and molecular mechanisms that underlie long-term memory formation and updating, with an emphasis on understanding how these mechanisms are altered in the aging brain. Her work has shown that individual circadian genes function in the dorsal hippocampus to modulate memory across the 24h day, a process that is disrupted with aging. Her lab uses a combination of sophisticated behavior and cutting-edge molecular techniques to manipulate individual genes and epigenetic mechanisms during distinct phases of memory formation. She is also involved in the Pavlovian Society, the Society for Neuroscience, the International Society for Behavioral Neuroscience (ISBN) and the Eastern Psychological Association.

Dr. Kwapis is particularly interested in mentoring and promoting diversity in science. She is a board member of the nonprofit organization Women in Learning (WIL), which aims to help support and advance women in science. As part of WIL, Dr. Kwapis helps facilitate a forum where young neuroscientists can get advice and guidance from established female scientists. She also serves as a mentor in the WIL mentoring program, providing one-on-one guidance to graduate students in the field. Dr. Kwapis is also proud to participate in multiple undergraduate programs that aim to improve diversity in STEM at Penn State, including the Millennium Scholars Program and the Summer Research Opportunities Program. As a USA Councilor for IBNS, Dr. Kwapis plans to improve diversity within the organization and organize new trainee networking events and mentoring programs to build on the strong tradition of trainee involvement at the annual meeting.

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Student

Madison Clement
University of New Hampshire
Durham, New Hampshire

I am a current graduate student working with Jill McGaughy at the University of New Hampshire. Our lab utilizes a wide array of behavioral, psychopharmacological and immunohistochemical techniques to investigate the neural basis of executive function. My current work is aimed at understanding the neural circuits involved in attention that are disrupted in major neuropsychiatric disorders using rodent models with an emphasis on understanding the unique contributions of the anterior cingulate and anterior midcingulate cortices. I am now beginning a project that blends my interest in adolescent brain development and the effects of acute stress on executive function. We will be using a novel brain network analyses to determine how the adolescent and adult brains differ in response to attentional testing alone and in combination with stress. I hope to share my results at IBNS 2022!

Presenting at the 2020 International Behavioral Neuroscience Society (IBNS) virtual meeting, while not traditional, showed me the power of the behavioral neuroscience community. I greatly appreciated the number of people who took the time to watch the videos, read the posters, and leave comments. It was inspiring! I am very excited about participating this year’s virtual meeting. As a Student Councilor, I will encourage all trainees to be involved and take advantage of the opportunities IBNS provides. I have previously served on several event planning committees so I understand the importance of outreach that fosters collaboration, engagement, and strengthens support networks. Having had strong female mentors throughout my life, I understand first-hand the impact that seeing yourself in the people who have your ideal career can have. During this year’s meeting I look forward to connecting with leaders in Black in Neuro and Women in Learning to discuss ways to build support for all of the up-and-coming behavioral neuroscientists.

Student

Nawshaba Nawreen
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, OH, USA

Nawshaba Nawreen: I am a graduate student working with Dr. James P Herman at the University of Cincinnati. My research focuses on understanding the role of the prefrontal cortex in stress related illnesses. My most recent work shows inhibiting parvalbumin interneurons in the prefrontal cortex, mitigates chronic stress effects on anxiety and depression-like behaviors- results of which I am planning to present at IBNS.

As I progressed through my graduate school, I noticed the lack of representation of women in neuroscience, especially women of color. I started volunteering for the Cincinnati Association for Women in Science (AWIS) and became involved in outreach activities to promote brain awareness to encourage students, and especially girls, to pursue a career in neuroscience. Outreach activities made me think about students like myself in Bangladesh and other developing countries who were passionate about neuroscience but never get the opportunity to pursue their dreams. To work towards that goal, I started an outreach initiative with IBNS to establish a network for neuroscientists in developing countries and USA. Our endeavors support IBNS’s long-term goal is to establish communication and collaboration with brain scientists around the world to promote diversity and inclusion in the Neuroscience research field.

As a Student Councilor, I will encourage all trainees to be involved and take advantage of the opportunities IBNS provides. I want to encourage and enable women and underserved students to pursue careers in science, and to advocate and raise awareness of mental health. During my 1st IBNS meeting attendance in 2021, I was thrilled to learn about the cutting-edge behavioral neuroscience research and excited to meet prominent neuroscientists. I want to make sure just like myself other students get the opportunity to attend IBNS and showcase their research. I want to increase diversity and inclusion in neuroscience, and I believe this will also lead to better research and equal opportunities for passionate students from all backgrounds. 

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