image: Debra Bangasser has been named Director of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience at Georgia State University
Credit: Courtesy: Georgia State University
ATLANTA — Debra Bangasser has been appointed as the next director of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience (CBN) at Georgia State University. She is also the university’s first Distinguished Investigator with the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA).
As an international expert on the mechanisms underlying stress-induced pathology, Bangasser also serves as a professor of neuroscience in the Georgia State Neuroscience Institute (NI).
The CBN is an award-winning, interdisciplinary research consortium supporting impactful research, collaboration and education in the field of neuroscience. For more than two decades, the center has supported innovative research on the brain mechanism of social behavior and continues to inspire new generations of research scientists through outreach and education.
“As our longest-running university research center, the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience has made significant contributions to the scientific literature on the neuroscience of social behavior, while also serving as a hub for training the next generation of students and postdoctoral fellows,” said Donald Hamelberg, Georgia State’s interim vice president for research and economic development. “We are excited to welcome Dr. Bangasser’s research expertise and leadership as she takes on this important role.”
The former center director, Elliott Albers, will continue his involvement as associate director of the center. Albers said he is excited about the next chapter for the CBN.
“As we approach the 25th anniversary of its founding we are excited about the new generation of leadership that is coming to the CBN,” Albers said. “We are extremely pleased that Dr. Bangasser, an internationally recognized neuroscientist and educator, has agreed to become the third director of the CBN. She is a proven leader who will promote basic and translational research and training within Georgia State and further expand CBN’s leadership position in the field of behavioral neuroscience.”
Bangasser’s research seeks to improve the understanding of the basic neuroscience mechanisms underlying stress responses in males and females and to foster the development of therapeutics that work well across sex. The work helps to explain the sex differences in many stress-related disorders, and why existing therapies are not similarly effective across all vulnerable populations.
GRA Distinguished Investigators are recruited to Georgia’s research universities to advance exploration across a wide range of fields. The program provides seed funding and direction for university researchers to move promising discoveries to the marketplace.
Tim Denning, president and CEO of the GRA, helped recruit Bangasser to Georgia State in 2022, when Denning was then the university’s vice president for research and economic development.
“Debra was the first GRA Distinguished Investigator named at Georgia State, which is a category of scientists focused on translating their research into real-life answers to human needs,” Denning said. “She has proven to be a true innovator in her work and a highly capable leader of interdisciplinary research. And she is an excellent choice to succeed Elliott Albers, who built the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience into a world-class research enterprise in his 22 years as director.”
The Center for Behavioral Neuroscience was first established by a grant from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation. Shortly after, it became one of the National Science Foundation’s Science and Technology Centers and expanded to include seven institutions in Atlanta (Georgia State University, Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Morehouse School of Medicine and the three schools in the Atlanta University Center: Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College and Spelman College) and other community partner organizations.
The original scientific focus of the CBN was on the affective and regulatory systems that underpin social behaviors including aggression, fear, reproduction and affiliation. With the addition of participating institutions’ new behavioral neuroscientists, the center’s focus has broadened to include positive emotional states, memory, cognition and reward functions of the brain. As the CBN continues its work, the research aims to continue to broaden along with the needs of its member institutions and the changing field of neuroscience.
“I am excited to build on the important research accomplishments of the scientists working with the CBN,” Bangasser said. “Tackling complex challenges through interdisciplinary efforts will be a key focus of our work as we look to the future of our center and advancing neuroscience research.”