Exploring Scientific
Progress Over Time
“Signaling between Cells in the Brain: Bridging the Past and Present of Neuroscience at Penn State with New Tools and New Questions"
Presented by Nikki Crowley
Huck Early Career Chair in Neurobiology and Neural Engineering, the Associate Director for Postdoctoral Training and Leadership in the Center for Neural Engineering, and an assistant professor of biology, biomedical engineering, and pharmacology
February 10, 2024
100 Huck Life Sciences Building (Berg Auditorium)
11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Crowley will present an overview of the history of neuroscience at Penn State, a reflection of the unique questions asked and solved by Penn State research, and some healthy speculation surrounding the future of emerging technologies and neuroscience.
Nikki Crowly is the Huck Early Career Chair in Neurobiology and Neural Engineering, the Associate Director for Postdoctoral Training and Leadership in the Center for Neural Engineering, and an assistant professor of biology, biomedical engineering, and pharmacology. Her research centers around understanding neuropeptides as unique signaling molecules in the brain, with an emphasis on the interactions between neuropeptides and neurotransmitters. Crowley received a Young Investigator Award from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and National Institutes of Health in 2023. She is the 2022 recipient of the Neuropsychopharmacology Editor's Early Career Award (NEECA) for her paper, "Somatostatin neurons control an alcohol binge drinking prelimbic microcircuit in mice," which appeared in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. Crowley earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology at James Madison University in 2008, worked at the National Institutes on Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), completed a master's degree in psychology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington in 2011, and was an Intramural Research Training Award (IRTA) Fellow at the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse. She earned a doctorate in neurobiology at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Medicine in 2015. Crowley completed postdoctoral training at Penn State prior to joining the Penn State faculty in 2018 as an assistant research professor in the department of biobehavioral health and became an assistant professor in the department of biology in 2020.
In 1998, the theme of the lecture series was “The Human Brain and the Human Mind.” That year, former Professor of Chemistry Andy Ewing, who is now at the University of Gothenburg, presented a lecture titled: "Signaling Between Cells in the Brain."
Ewing will join virtually from Sweden to give a brief update on the research topic and an introduction before Crowley's lecture.
Ewing, professor of chemistry and molecular biology, is a Knut and Alice Wallenberg Scholar (2011-2023), an elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, class 4 (chemistry), Nobel Class (2012) and the Gothenburg Academy of Arts and Sciences (2013). His research focusses on the neuronal process of exocytosis pioneering small-volume chemical measurements at single nerve cells and the contents of individual nanometer vesicles in cells as well as mass spectrometry imaging of cells and organelles. He earned a doctoral degree in analytical and biological chemistry at Indiana University in 1983 and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of North Carolina from 1983 to 1984. Ewing joined the faculty at Penn State in 1984 and was head of the Department of Chemistry from 1999 to 2004. He became Marie Curie Chair in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Gothenburg in 2007.
Due to a technical error, a recorded version of this talk will not be available. However, those who weren’t able to make it to the Feb. 10, 2024, Ashtekar Frontiers of Science lecture can view a virtual talk by Nikki Crowley that was held on May 21. 2024, as part of the Penn State Alumni Association’s Virtual Speaker Session.