People

The B-NETS program will be administered directly by the three Principal Investigators:

• Paul Forlano (Brooklyn College)
• Louise Hainline (Brooklyn College)
• Mark Stewart (SUNY Downstate Medical Center)

The Medgar Evers component of the program will be administered by:

• Mohsin Patwary, Dean of the School of Science, Health and Technology, (Medgar Evers College, CUNY)

In addition to the Principal Investigators for the B-NETS program, students will be supported by project administrators and researchers at Brooklyn College and Downstate Medical Center Possible Research Mentors and Research Topics at Brooklyn College and Downstate Medical Center.

• Peter Bergold, Professor, Neural and Behavioral Science, Physiology and Pharmacology and Pharmacology, Downstate. Research: The pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, in particular, the development of drugs to treat mild traumatic brain injury, often not treated until days after the injury has been sustained.
• Elizabeth Chua, Associate Professor, Psychology, Brooklyn College. Research: The cognitive and neural bases of human memory and metacognition, associative memory, biases in memory, and metamemory, using fMRI, tDCS, TMS, and eye tracking techniques.
• Andrew Delamater, Professor, Psychology, Brooklyn College. Research: Associative learning processes in rodents and humans governing Pavlovian and instrumental learning tasks, experimental extinction processes, the neural mechanisms of representation and extinction processes in Pavlovian learning, and computational and neural net models of simple associative learning.
• Paul Forlano, Professor and PI/PD, Biology, Brooklyn College. Research: Evolutionary/systems neuroscience and cellular and molecular approaches for neurochemical interactions in circuitry underlying auditory-driven social behavior, steroid-induced neural plasticity, and sex differences in brain and behavior.
• Yu Gao, Associate Professor, Psychology, Brooklyn College. Research: Neurobiological bases of externalizing behavior in children, adolescents, and adults using psychophysiological methods to study moral judgment in psychopathic individuals, autonomic conditioning impairments, and children’s conduct problems, emotion dysregulation, aggression, and mind-body dissociation and psychopathy.
• Guillermo Gerona-Navarro, Assistant Professor, Chemistry, Brooklyn College. Research: Bioorganic and synthetic chemistry using biochemical and cell assays of demyelinating disorders. Development of small molecules and peptidomimetics of intracellular protein-protein interactions. Role of biologically important proteins in human biology and disease; chemical probes to study neurodegenerative disease.
• Alan Gintzler, Distinguished Professor, Neural and Behavioral Science, Downstate. Research: Biochemistry of addiction/narcotic tolerance; G protein signaling cascades; gender-dependent (e.g. estrogen, progesterone) regulation of opioid activity and pain sensitivity.
• Xian-Cheng Jiang, Professor, Cell Biology, Downstate. Research: Lipid metabolism and diseases, specifically, sphingomyelin metabolism, and phospholipid metabolism.
• Steven Levine, Distinguished Professor, Neurology and Emergency Medicine, Downstate. Research: Cerebrovascular disease and stroke, antiphospholipid antibodies and cerebrovascular disease, telemedicine for stroke, thrombolytic therapy for acute ischemic stroke, mobile stroke applications, post-stroke fatigue, and primary stroke prevention in women.
• William Lytton, Professor, Physiology and Pharmacology and Neurology, Downstate. Research: Computational neuroscience applications and modeling in clinical neuroscience in a variety of diseases: schizophrenia, stroke, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, brain-machine interface, and neuro-rehabilitation, neural modeling, software for neural stimulation.
• Jacquelyn Leigh Meyers, Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Downstate. Research: Genetic, neurophysiological, neurocognitive, and psycho-social risk factors for substance use disorders and co-occurring psychiatric disorders.
• Herman Moreno, Physiology and Pharmacology, Downstate. Research: Post-translational modifications in ion channel biophysics and electrophysiology, neurodegenerative diseases and aging, synaptic dysfunction before cell death, mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease, and differential regional vulnerability.
• Laura Rabin, Professor, Psychology, Brooklyn College. Research: Cognitive and neurophysiological precursor conditions of subjective cognitive decline in preclinical dementia prior to Alzheimer’s disease progression compared with intact functioning to facilitate earlier diagnosis and intervention.
• Todd Sacktor, Distinguished Professor, Physiology and Pharmacology, Neurology, Downstate. Research: Molecular mechanisms of long-term memory, synaptic long-term potentiation and plasticity; PKMζ as a general mechanism for long-term memory storage in the brain.
• Sheryl Smith, Professor Physiology and Pharmacology, Downstate. Research: Role of GABAergic inhibition of dendritic spines at puberty in mouse prefrontal cortex and its role in synaptic pruning, with implications for schizophrenia where pruning is abnormal and defects are found in the GABAR δ gene.
• Mark Stewart, co-PI/PD, Professor, Physiology and Pharmacology, Neurology, and Dean, School of Graduate Studies, Downstate. Research: Causes and consequences of seizures using brain slices to study cellular and circuit mechanisms of seizure generation; methods in animals and humans to study seizure spread and cardiovascular and respiratory consequences of acute and chronic seizures; mechanisms for death in epilepsy.
• Henri Tiedge, Distinguished Professor, Physiology and Pharmacology, and Neurology, Downstate. Research: The functional roles of regulatory neuronal RNAs, translational control pathways in neurons, and RNA transport mechanisms in dendrites; control of neuronal excitability and plasticity and dysfunction in the form of hyperexcitability, epileptogenic responses, and cognitive impairment.
• Marianna Torrente, Assistant Professor, Chemistry, Brooklyn College. Research: Molecular mechanisms of neurodegenerative and psychiatric disease, using approaches from epigenetics, molecular neurobiology, and protein folding to study biological processes underlying neuropsychiatric disease at the molecular level.
• Deborah Walder, Professor, Psychology, Brooklyn College. Research: Identification of early neurodevelopmental markers of risk for such mental health disorders as schizophrenia and depression using neurohormone assays, genetics, neuropsychological testing, and brain imaging techniques (MRI, DTI), and environmental factors such as stress among healthy, high-risk, and young adults.
• Tracey Wilson, Distinguished Service Professor, Community Health Sciences, Downstate. Research: Research to promote healthy behaviors, increase care-seeking for HIV and other chronic conditions, and improve adherence and engagement in care in diverse populations, working in and with local communities subject to health disparities.