Scott Kinlein, Ph.D.
**Scott is now "Dr. Kinlein" as of December 2018!**
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Near the end of my undergraduate work at Frostburg State University in 2012, eager to get my feet wet in actual research, I volunteered to work in a few different labs around the university. While I was interested in a variety of topics at the time, what really captured my interest was my work on two different faculty-led research projects focused on animal behavior. Knowing that understanding the brain would be important in understanding how the behaviors I was studying were generated, I decided that I would pursue my graduate research in neuroscience. In the first semester of my PhD program at Washington State University in 2013, I became interested in the work of Dr. Karatsoreos, who was studying how disturbances in homeostatic systems in the body can affect many aspects of an individual’s health. My thesis work became focused on how the body’s “stress” system can affect brain function, and how dysfunction of this system can negatively impact an organism’s metabolic, neural, and behavioral health outcomes. My work shows that long-term dysfunction of the stress system can change the function of circuits in the brain, and may render an individual more sensitive to poor health outcomes caused by exposure to prolonged periods of stress. Stay tuned!
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When I'm not in the lab, I enjoy spending time in the outdoors, and frequently venture to nearby mountain ranges for wilderness backpacking in the summer. I am also an avid tennis player and generally enjoy being active any chance I get.
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Notable Achievements:
Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology Travel Award
Society for Neuroscience FENS Travel Award
