Kristen Pleil
Principal Investigator
Kristen began her position as an Assistant Professor in the Pharmacology Department at WCM in June 2016. She received her PhD in 2010 from Duke University, where she studied estrogen-mediated neural plasticity during learning and memory. She then completed her postdoc in the laboratory of Thomas Kash at the UNC School of Medicine, where she characterized neuropeptide signaling mechanisms of binge alcohol drinking and investigated the effects of chronic exposure to stress and alcohol on limbic circuits. Kristen Pleil CV
krp2013@med.cornell.edu
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Mary Jane Skelly
Postdoctoral Fellow
Mary Jane joined the Pleil Lab as a postdoctoral fellow in 2017. She earned her PhD in Neuroscience in Jeff Weiner’s lab at Wake Forest School of Medicine, where she studied the neuroadaptations linking adolescent stress exposure to increased anxiety, excessive alcohol intake, and disrupted fear and extinction learning in later life. Prior to joining Dr. Weiner’s lab Mary Jane studied accumbal modulation of palatable food intake as an MA student in Wayne Pratt’s lab at Wake Forest. She is generally interested in identifying pathological alterations in the neural circuits underlying motivated behavior.
jas2765@med.cornell.edu
Pasha Ghazal
Visiting postdoctoral Fulbright scholar
pag4003@med.cornell.edu
Olivia Levine
Graduate Student (Neuroscience)
Livi graduated from Brandeis University in 2013, where she majored neuroscience and biology. She completed her senior thesis research in the laboratory of Steven Goldstein, where she studied the biophysical properties of voltage-gated potassium channels. She is now a fifth year neuroscience PhD candidate studying how estrogen signaling alters neuronal function in thalamo-limbic circuits involved in addiction and affective disorders.
oll2004@med.cornell.edu
Jean Rivera
Graduate Student (Neuroscience)
Jean joined the lab in 2017. He is this happy even when he is in the midst of running a massive mouse behavior experiment.
jkr2004@med.cornell.edu
Lia Zallar
Graduate Student (Pharmacology)
Lia joined the lab in fall 2019. She graduated from Reed College with a degree in Neuroscience, and her undergraduate research focused on ghrelin signaling in appetitive reward and alcohol use. Lia did a post-baccalaureate fellowship at the National Institutes of Health, where she conducted translational research collaborations in Dr. Lorenzo Leggio’s laboratory at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and Dr. George Koob’s laboratory at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. She is interested in aromatase activity in estrogen modulation of circuits linked to alcohol use and neuropsychiatric disorders.
ljz4001@med.cornell.edu
John Miller
Research Technician
John joined the lab in 2017 after graduating from Union College with a degree in Bioengineering. He is spearheading efforts to utilize in vivo and ex vivo biosensor imaging techniques in our research.
jom2966@med.cornell.edu