Stephanie Staszko

Dr. Staszko is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Dr. Alfred Kaye in the department of Psychiatry. Her research uses a combination of optogenetics, in-vivo imaging, and novel behavioral paradigms to study the interactions between arousal states, sensory coding, and behavioral responses to environmental stimuli. Dr. Staszko received her PhD from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center where she worked with Drs. Max Fletcher and John Boughter studying the role of experience on cortical taste coding in the gustatory (insular) cortex. Her long term goal is to develop an independent research program combining her unique expertise in leveraging cutting-edge systems neuroscience techniques to study sensory coding and plasticity in ethologically-relevant behavioral paradigms.