Principal Investigator

Melissa R. Warden, Ph.D.

 

Associate Professor (tenured)

Department of Translational Neurosciences

College of Medicine - Phoenix

The University of Arizona

 

Melissa R. Warden is an Associate Professor in the Department of Translational Neuroscience at the University of Arizona. She received an A.B. in Molecular Biology from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in Systems Neuroscience from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she investigated prefrontal neuronal encoding of multi-item short-term memory with Earl K. Miller. As a postdoctoral fellow with Karl Deisseroth at Stanford University she studied cortical control of neuromodulatory systems in motivated behavior. Prior to moving to the University of Arizona, she was faculty in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University. She has received a number of awards including the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, a Robertson Neuroscience Investigator Award from the New York Stem Cell Foundation, a NARSAD Young Investigator Award from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, a Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Research Foundation, and a Research Grant from the Whitehall Foundation. Her research at the University of Arizona integrates imaging, neurophysiological, optogenetic, and behavioral approaches to study the neural circuits regulating cognition and emotion and their dysfunction.

 

Melissa's CV

 

Papers: Google Scholar | PubMed | bioRxiv

 

Email: mrwarden [at] arizona.edu

 

Twitter: @MelissaRWarden   Bluesky: @mrwarden.bsky.social

Research Associates

Kristine E. Kolkman, Ph.D.

 

Ph.D., Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego

B.S., Neurobiology and Behavior, University of California, Irvine

 

Kristine E. Kolkman is a research associate in Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University. She received a B.S. in Neurobiology and Behavior from University of California -Irvine, and a Ph.D. in Neurosciences from University of California -San Diego where she studied intrinsic electrophysiological properties of neurons in the pre- and post-cerebellar circuits in Sascha du Lac’s lab at the Salk Institute. She did her postdoctoral work in the lab of Joe Fetcho at Cornell University studying the activity of multiple brain areas in larval and adult zebrafish, and she helped develop techniques to allow imaging in live, intact adult zebrafish. Kristine’s research in the Warden lab focuses on understanding motivation to engage in reward seeking behaviors and the functional role of inputs to the lateral habenula in regulating behavior.

 

Graduate Students

Cole Roland, B.S.

 

Ph.D. student in Neurobiology and Behavior

B.S., Biology, Haverford College

 

Cole received his Bachelor’s in Biology from Haverford College, where he studied the neural substrates of decision making in zebrafish. At Cornell, he is continuing to investigate the neurobiological mechanisms underlying motivation and decision making, currently using mouse models. In his free time, he enjoys making music, playing soccer, and experimenting in the kitchen.

Chelsea Strawder, B.S., B.A.

 

Ph.D. student in Neurobiology and Behavior

B.S., Comparative and Evolutionary Neuroscience, University of Florida

B.A., Anthropology, University of Florida

 

 

 

Diala Noofoory, B.A.

 

Ph.D. student in Neurobiology and Behavior

B.A., Psychology, Rutgers University

 

 

 

 

Ivan Kondratyev, B.A.

 

Ph.D. student in Neurobiology and Behavior

B.A., Philosophy and Neuroscience, Boston University

 

 

 

Research Assistants

Deepika Gupta, B.S.

 

B.S., Physics, Cornell University

 

Undergraduates

Raf Chociej

 

Undergraduate in Human Health, Biology, and Society.

 

 

Lab Alumni and next position

Akash Guru → Postdoc with Feng Zhang, MIT/Broad Institute

Brie Sleezer → Medical Writer and Data Analysis Consultant

Changwoo Seo → Postdoc with Catherine Dulac, Harvard University

Dave Bulkin → Senior Software Engineer, Mathworks

Eileen Troconis → Completing DVM component of DVM/PhD, Cornell University

Ryan Post → Postdoc with Nick Betley, University of Pennsylvania

Wenchao Gu → Research Associate with Shaoyi Jiang, Cornell University

Yi-Yun Ho → Postdoc with Guoping Feng, MIT/Broad Institute

Yuval Baumel → Machine Learning Researcher, Intuition Robotics

 

Melissa R. Warden, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Department of Translational Neurosciences

College of Medicine - Phoenix

The University of Arizona

mrwarden [at] arizona.edu