Contact information
Please direct inquiries about the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience to:
Terry L. Davidson
Director, the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience
Asbury 334
4400 Massachusetts Avenue
Washington, DC 20016
202-885-6541
terryd@american.edu
or
Jenny Lopez
Senior Administrative Assistant
Department of Psychology
4400 Massachusetts Avenue
Washington, DC 20016
202-885-1717
lopez@american.edu
Terry Davidson
,Director of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience and Professor
Dr. Davidson earned his undergraduate degree in Psychology at Michigan State University and earned his Ph.D. with a specialization in Learning and Memory at Purdue University before completing his post-doctoral training in Behavioral Neuroscience at ... [More]
202-885-6541
CAS - Psychology
CAS - Psychology
Anthony Ahrens
,Associate Professor
Anthony Ahrens did his undergraduate work at Northwestern University and received his doctorate in psychology from Stanford University. His research interests fall at the interface of social and clinical psychology. His current interests emphasize gr... [More]
202-885-1714
CAS - Psychology
CAS - Psychology
Naomi Baron
,Executive Director, Center for Teaching, Research and Learning
Professor Baron is interested in electronically-mediated communication, writing and technology, and the history of English. A former Guggenheim Fellow and Fulbright Fellow, she has published seven books. Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile Wo... [More]
202-885-2455
CAS - World Languages and Cultures
CAS - World Languages and Cultures
Fernando Benadon
,Chair, Department of Performing Arts
Fernando Benadon oversees the music theory & composition program in the Department of Performing Arts. His research focuses on rhythm, twentieth-century music, and cognition.Recent honors include a Digital Humanities Grant from the National Endowment... [More]
202-885-3452
CAS - Performing Arts
CAS - Performing Arts
William Brent
,Assistant Professor
William Brent’s creative work is spread across the areas of experimental music performance, sound art, and sound design. These projects involve various combinations of human- robotic- and computer-realized sound, and are controlled by software writte... [More]
202-885-1488
CAS - Performing Arts
CAS - Performing Arts
Gregory Busse
,Assistant Professor
Dr. Busse received his Bachelors in Psychology from Tulane University and his Masters and Doctorate in Psychology from American University. He worked for several years for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration leading the team responsible for develop... [More]
202-885-6305
CAS - Dean's Office
CAS - Dean's Office
Stephen Casey
,Professor
Professor Stephen D. Casey is a founding member of the Editorial Board for Sampling Theory in Signal and Image Processing. His research is in complex and harmonic analysis with applications to signal processing. He has published nearly forty articles... [More]
202-885-3126
CAS - Math & Statistics
CAS - Math & Statistics
Victoria Connaughton
,Associate Professor
Dr. Connaughton’s research interests encompass the disciplines of developmental biology (nervous system development) and neurobiology. Specifically, she is interested in examining the relation between visually-guided behaviors in larval teleosts and ... [More]
202-885-2188
Stefano Costanzi
,Assistant Professor
Dr. Costanzi’s research interests revolve around the study of the cellular targets of drugs, the identification and pharmacological characterization of molecules that modulate their activity, and the examination of the cellular consequences resulting... [More]
202-885-1722
CAS - Chemistry
CAS - Chemistry
Kathleen De Cicco-Skinner
,Assistant Professor
Dr. DeCicco-Skinner's research interests include cancer biology, cell biology, and immunology. Specifically, her research is focused on studying two of the major inflammatory pathways in the cell, MAPK and NF-kB, to identify how these pathways become... [More]
202-885-2193
CAS - Biology
CAS - Biology
Bryan Fantie
,Associate Professor
RESEARCH INTERESTS:Cognitive and clinical neuropsychology, behavioural neuroscience; neural mechanisms and correlates of behaviour, emotion, cognition, learning, memory; behavioural neurology; neuropsychological testing and diagnosis; function of the... [More]
202-885-1790
CAS - Psychology
CAS - Psychology
James Girard
,Department Chair, Chemistry
Dr. James Girard teaches analytical, environmental and forensic chemistry, as well as chemistry for non-science majors. He is the author of a textbook for environmental and chemistry students, Principles of Environmental Chemistry. He is also the aut... [More]
202-885-1791
CAS - Chemistry
CAS - Chemistry
Maria Gomez
,Senior Professorial Lecturer
Dr. Gomez-Serrano was born and raised in Madrid where she obtained her Veterinarian degree specializing in animal husbandry and genetics. Right after obtaining her degree, Dr. Gomez-Serrano moved to Washington DC and started working at NIH with Dr. S... [More]
202-885-2681
CAS - Psychology
CAS - Psychology
Mary Gray
,Professor
A statistician and lawyer, Professor Gray’s areas of research include applications of statistics to human rights, economic equity, legal issues, and education. She is the founder of the Association for Women in Mathematics, a fellow of the American S... [More]
202-885-3171
CAS - Math & Statistics
CAS - Math & Statistics
James Gray
,Professor
Current Research Interests: Eating Disorders, Behavior Therapy, Psychotherapy, Abnormal Psychology, Psychology of Religion
202-885-1716
CAS - Psychology
CAS - Psychology
Kathleen Gunthert
,Associate Professor
Dr. Gunthert’s program of research focuses on the influence of everyday stress and coping on depression, anxiety, and psychotherapy outcomes. Specifically, she has used intensive daily monitoring techniques to address how everyday mood regulation var... [More]
202-885-1701
CAS - Psychology
CAS - Psychology
David Haaga
,Professor
Dave Haaga is a Professor of Psychology and has been a faculty member at American University since 1989. Dr. Haaga received his PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Southern California and completed postdoctoral training in cognitive the... [More]
202-885-1718
CAS - Psychology
CAS - Psychology
Nathaniel Herr
,Assistant Professor
Nathaniel Herr is an Assistant Professor of Psychology who joined the department in 2012. Dr. Herr received his PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles and received postdoctoral training and a faculty appointment at ... [More]
202-885-1724
CAS - Psychology
CAS - Psychology
Sarah Irvine Belson
,Dean, School of Education, Teaching and Health
Dr. Irvine Belson's research activities focus on infusing effective components of instructional design with emerging technology across the field of education, particularly for students with exceptionalities. Dr. Irvine Belson has trained pre-service ... [More]
202-885-3714
CAS - Education/Teaching/Health
CAS - Education/Teaching/Health
Laura Juliano
,Associate Professor
Laura M. Juliano earned her PhD. in Clinical Psychology from the State University of New York at Binghamton and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her research addresses cognitive and behavioral mecha... [More]
202-885-1715
CAS - Psychology
CAS - Psychology
Jeffrey Kaplan
,Director of the Center for Food Studies and Associate Professor
Kaplan’s lab studies bacterial biofilms, which are thin, slimy layers of bacteria that grow on surfaces exposed to a liquid. Biofilms grow on rocks in streams, inside pipes, on teeth, and on implanted medical devices such as mechanical heart valves a... [More]
202-885-2113
CAS - Biology
CAS - Biology
David Kearns
,Associate Professor
Research interests:animal models of drug abuse and addiction treatment; the effects of drug cues on behavior; conditioning and learning; extinction; theories of learning; animal models of gambling.Recent publications:Kearns, D. N., Tunstall, B. J., &... [More]
202-885-1711
CAS - Psychology
CAS - Psychology
Monika Konaklieva
,Associate Professor
Dr. Konaklieva’s research is in the area of exploring different approaches for delaying of microbial resistance. Current projects include computer-aided design and synthesis of novel beta-lactams as well as development of synthetic methodology for pr... [More]
202-885-1777
CAS - Chemistry
CAS - Chemistry
Stephen MacAvoy
,Assistant Professor
Working in biogeochemistry and ecology, Stephen E. MacAvoy has been particularly interested in areas where marine and freshwater systems interface such as those that appear in tidal aquatic environments. He studies how nutrients flow through and are ... [More]
202-885-3003
CAS - Environmental Science
CAS - Environmental Science
Scott Parker
,Professor
Born in Brooklyn, Scott Parker began teaching at American University in 1974. He is interested in the quantitative aspects of our experiences and how we make evaluations and choices based on them. Examples include how loud we think sounds are, how va... [More]
202-885-1719
CAS - Psychology
CAS - Psychology
Zehra Peynircioglu
,Professor
Zehra Peynirciolu received her undergraduate degree in psychology from Stanford. Dr. Phil Zimbardo drew her into psychology, Dr. Ewart Thomas advised her, and Dr. Roger Shepard directed her honors thesis. She started graduate studies in cognitive psy... [More]
202-885-1713
CAS - Psychology
CAS - Psychology
Anthony Riley
,Department Chair, Psychology
Dr. Riley received his undergraduate training at the University of North Carolina and obtained his PhD from the University of Washington. He did a post-doctoral fellowship in pharmacology at Dalhousie University in Canada. He joined the faculty at Am... [More]
202-885-1720
CAS - Psychology
CAS - Psychology
Colin Saldanha
,Professor
Hormones are profound modulators of brain structure and function; with influences that span the lifetime of an organism. The muti-faceted and pluripotent neural effects of steroids require that a specific hormone be delivered to the right target at p... [More]
202-885-2156
CAS - Biology
CAS - Biology
Catherine Schaeff
,Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies
Dr. Schaeff's main research interests are conservation biology, molecular ecology and behavior. She uses molecular DNA techniques in conjunction with behavioral data to investigate gene flow patterns within and between populations (e.g., right whales... [More]
202-885-2175
CAS - Dean's Office
CAS - Dean's Office
Arthur Shapiro
,Professor
Arthur Shapiro specializes in the areas of visual perception and cognitive neuroscience. He did his undergraduate work in Mathematics (Computer Science) and Psychology (Cognitive Science) at U.C. San Diego. He received his PhD in Psychology from Colu... [More]
202-885-1759
CAS - Psychology
CAS - Psychology
Alan Silberberg
,Professor
My research interests are animal learning, behavioral economics, primatology and smoking. To see publications, copy the following link and then paste into a web browser: http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=u90rFioAAAAJ&hl=en
202-885-1709
CAS - Psychology
CAS - Psychology
Anastasia Snelling
,Associate Professor
Dr. Anastasia Snelling is an associate professor at American University in the School of Education, Teaching, and Health. Dr. Snelling has been teaching undergraduate and graduate health promotion programs for the past two decades with a focus on nut... [More]
202-885-6278
CAS - Education/Teaching/Health
CAS - Education/Teaching/Health
Catherine Stoodley
,Assistant Professor
Catherine Stoodley is interested in the neuroscience of cognitive development, particularly the role of the cerebellum in learning and skill acquisition. She uses neuroimaging and behavioral studies in healthy people and clinical patients to investig... [More]
202-885-1785
CAS - Psychology
CAS - Psychology
Jon Wisman
,Professor
Professor Wisman teaching interests are: History of Economic Thought, Methodology, History, Introductory Macroeconomics.
202-885-3158
CAS - Economics
CAS - Economics
Advisory Committee
Terry L. Davidson: Director
Stefano Costanzi: Chemistry
Kathleen Gunthert: Clinical Psychology
Alison Presley: Graduate Student, Behavior, Cognition, & Neuroscience
Colin Saldanha: Biology
Arthur Shapiro: Behavior, Cognition, & Neuroscience
Catherine Stoodley: Behavior, Cognition, & Neuroscience
Departments & Programs
Faculty from the following participate in the center: