Lauren was a 2017 CCB Fellow while working in the Laboratory of Neurobiology of Compulsive Behaviors under Veronica Alvarez at the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Her long-term research interest as a CCB Fellow aimed to uncover the neural substrates, synaptic mechanisms, and brain circuits underlying compulsive drug seeking and taking using sophisticated animal models with a high relevance toward human addiction.
Lauren received her Ph.D. in Behavioral Neuroscience from Oregon Health & Science University in 2012 where she used mouse models of drug taking and seeking to characterize the role of acetylcholine in methamphetamine locomotion, reward, and reinforcement. In January 2019, she will begin a tenure-track faculty position at the University of Texas at Austin in the Department of Neuroscience. Her laboratory will be housed within the Waggoner Center for Alcohol & Addiction Research and focus on dissecting the neural substrates and circuits of polysubstance abuse.
In her spare time, she enjoys playing with her son, practicing Shaolin Kung Fu, and going to concerts.