Colleen A. McClung, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Center for Basic Neuroscience at The University of Texas,... » More

Colleen A. McClung, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Center for Basic Neuroscience at The University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center. She received her B.S. in Biology with a Minor in Chemistry in 1994 at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She went on to earn her Ph.D. in 2001 at the University of Virginia in the laboratory of Dr. Jay Hirsh in the Department of Biology. There she performed pioneering experiments using Drosophila as a model system to study the behavioral responses to cocaine and other drugs of abuse. She went on to do a post-doctoral fellowship with Dr. Eric Nestler at UT Southwestern. In Dr. Nestler’s laboratory she continued her studies into the molecular biology of drug addiction and other psychiatric disorders. She joined the faculty in the Department of Psychiatry at UT Southwestern in 2005. Dr. McClung is the recipient of two NARSAD Young Investigator Awards, The Music Festival for Mental Health Award, and The Blue Gator Foundation Research Award.

Dr. McClung’s laboratory is interested in the role of the circadian clock in the development and treatment of psychiatric disorders. Much of their work is focused on understanding the mechanisms by which circadian genes both in the SCN and in other brain regions influence mood, reward, and motivation

« Hide