Department of Pharmacology and Physiology
Drexel University College of Medicine
Current Lab Members
Jacqueline Barker, PhD
Principal Investigator
she/her/hers
Jacqui earned her BA in Psychology at Ohio Wesleyan University. She completed her PhD in Neuroscience at Yale University, in the lab of Jane Taylor before moving to the Medical University of South Carolina to complete her postdoctoral training with Judson Chandler. Jacqui started her lab in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at Drexel University College of Medicine in the fall of 2017.
Kathleen Bryant
PhD Candidate, Neuroscience
she/her/hers
Katie is completing her PhD with the Neuroscience PhD Program at the Drexel University College of Medicine. Her work in the lab focuses on ventral hippocampal circuits in the regulation of behavioral flexibility.
Lauren Buck (Plyler), MS
Lab Manager
she/her/hers
Lauren completed her Master's in Neuroscience in 2018 where she developed expertise in the use of mouse models to investigate neural function.
lap352@drexel.edu
Christina Curran-Alfaro, MS
PhD Student, Neuroscience
she/her/hers
Christina completed her Masters in 2020 in biology with a concentration in neurobiology at Rutgers-Camden where her work explored circuitry involved in spatial memory utilizing a teleost model. In the Barker lab, she is expanding her work to investigate changes in behavioral response associated with low-dose ethanol exposure.
Laura Giacometti, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar
she/her/hers
Laura completed her PhD with Dr. Ramesh Raghupathi in 2018, where her dissertation focused on sex differences in long term behavioral alterations following adolescent mild traumatic brain injury. She is building on her expertise in sex differences to investigate sex-specific effects of chronic ethanol exposure on astrocyte activity and its role in regulating reward seeking and depression-related behaviors.
llk34@drexel.edu
Yue Lu
Master's student, Drug Discovery and Development
Yue is a 3+2 coop student between China Pharmaceutical University and Drexel University, currently completing her Master's in Drug Discovery & Development. Her background in food and nutrition at CPU has facilitated her transition to studying reward seeking in rodent models in the Pharmacology & Physiology Department.
Mitch Nothem, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar
Mitch completed his PhD with Dr. James Barrett in 2020, where his dissertation focused on the effects of peripheral nerve injury and gabapentin on cortical pain processing. His postdoctoral work will focus on the interaction between chronic pain and substance use disorders.
Michelle Willis
Medical Student,
NeuroAIDS T32 Fellow
Michelle is a medical student at Drexel University College of Medicine who joined the lab as part of the T-32 NeuroAIDS Summer Research Training Fellowship. Her research focus is on the combined effects of cocaine exposure and HIV on astrocytes immunoreactivity in mouse models of HIV infection.
Qiaowei Xie, MS
PhD Student, Pharmacology and Physiology
Qiaowei has returned to the lab to complete her PhD in Pharmacology and Physiology. Her research focus is neural circuit dysregulation in preclinical models of HIV.
Undergraduate Researchers
Former Lab Members
Isabella Agyapong
Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow, 2018
Brittanie Bland, MS
Master's student, Drug Discovery and Development, 2018
Laura Figueroa, MS
Master's student, Interdisciplinary Health Sciences, 2020
Brianna Hamilton
NeuroHIV T32 Trainee, Summer 2019
Fangyi Huang
Master's student, Drug Discovery and Development, 2020
Briana Johnson
Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow, 2019
Wenhan Lu
Master's student, Drug Discovery and Development, 2018
Jessie Nagle
Master's student, Drug Discovery and Development, 2018
Harsha Ohri
Rotating Student, Neuroscience PhD Program, 2018
Kaitlin Smith
Master's student, Master of Laboratory Animal Science Program, 2018