Our Team

Leadership

Director

Danny Winder

A neuroscientist focused on stress and addiction, Dr. Winder has been particularly interested in determining mechanisms that modulate synaptic plasticity, and how and when these processes are disrupted by stress and during Alcohol/Substance Use Disorder. He is founding director of the Vanderbilt Center for Addiction Research, and chair of the department of Neurobiology, and Worcester Foundation of Biomedical Research professor at UMass Chan medical school. At the national level, he has served as an associate editor of The Journal of Neuroscience, section editor of Neuropharmacology and on the editorial board of Molecular Pharmacology.

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Associate Director

Jennifer Blackford

Jennifer Blackford, PhD is the Director of Research at the Munroe-Meyer Institute and Hattie B. Munroe Professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Dr. Blackford's research program aims to identify and characterize the neurobiological basis of anxiety across the lifespan and the role of anxiety neurocircuitry in people with psychiatric disorders including alcohol use disorders. The long term goal of her research program is to use these discoveries to develop new prevention strategies for new treatments for individuals suffering with these disorders. Dr. Blackford's research has been funded by multiple federal agencies including the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

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Assistant Director

Erin Calipari

Dr. Calipari is the Assistant Director of VAREC, the Director of the Vanderbilt Center for Addiction Research, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University. Her lab has made seminal discoveries on how drug use changes the brain at the systems and molecular level to give rise to addiction. Over her career, she has published over 90 peer-reviewed research articles and reviews on these topics. In her role as director of the Vanderbilt Center for Addiction Research, she is leading a large group of faculty, students, and staff as they work together to understand the brain and the factors that confer risk to addiction. 

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Team Members

  • Cody Siciliano

    Cody Siciliano

    Cody Siciliano, Ph.D. is a Neuroscientist, Pharmacologist, and Assistant Professor at the Center for Addiction Research at Vanderbilt University. His research investigates the neural basis of motivation and maladaptive decision-making to better understand why some individuals may develop addictive behaviors and others do not. The Siciliano Lab focuses on the study of alcohol and cocaine in non-human subjects to investigate drug action, neurotransmitter signaling, and neural activity patterns underlying cognition and behaviors relevant to substance abuse. Leveraging his extensive expertise pharmacology, Cody's work also explores potential therapeutic strategies for treating addiction-relevant brain disorders.

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  • Richard Simerly

    Richard Simerly

    Richard Simerly is a graduate of The University of California, Berkeley, where he studied anatomy and physiology before joining Roger Gorski’s laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles, receiving a Ph.D. in 1984. He did postdoctoral research with Dr. Larry Swanson in the Developmental Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute, and was appointed Senior Research Associate in its Neural Systems Laboratory. Dr. Simerly is an internationally recognized expert on hormonal control of brain development. His laboratory made several key discoveries in the field of sexual differentiation, including the first genetic evidence for the sufficiency of the Esr1 in sexual differentiation, the first demonstration that caspase activity is required for hormone-induced apoptotic neuronal death in the hypothalamus, and the first demonstration of target dependent sexual differentiation of limbic-hypothalamic connections. His laboratory also demonstrated that the fat-derived hormone leptin represents a significant factor directing development of essential components of hypothalamic circuits that control energy balance, and that the developmental actions of leptin suppress development of viscerosensory inputs to the hypothalamus. His current research is focused on understanding how the architecture of forebrain circuits that control body weight and energy metabolism is specified in response to endocrine and nutritional cues during defined neurodevelopmental critical periods, with direct implications for the developmental origins of obesity.

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  • David Wasserman

    David Wasserman

    David Wasserman has been the director of the mouse metabolic phenotyping center (VMMPC) at Vanderbilt University since 2001. In this center,  faculty and staff serve the scientific community by developing and optimizing tests to study the mouse, with an emphasis on the whole organism. VMMPC provides surgical procedures that range from providing chronic vascular access to complex bariatric surgeries. Experiments include those necessary to define actions and secretion of hormones to the efficacy and pharmacokinetics of a drug. The physiological components and behaviors that determine energy balance can be sensitively measured in the VMMPC. Analytical services provide assays that are scaled down for the limited sample volumes obtained from the mice. In addition, an Animal Health and Welfare Core that performs husbandry, health assessments, and pathology ensures the mice we study are in optimal condition. VMMPC also offers educational services. 

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  • Menton Deweese

    Menton Deweese

    Menton Deweese, PhD is a Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscientist whose research focuses on affective stimulus processing using psychophysiological (i.e., dense-array electroencephalography; EEG) and behavioral measures to study the neural mechanisms underlying compulsive cue-induced behaviors, such as nicotine addiction and obesity. She has been integrally involved in the implementation and analysis of two smoking cessation clinical trials, which has enabled her to further study the underlying neuropsychological, behavioral, and pharmacological mechanisms underlying smoking dependence and relapse. As a full-time Instructor at the School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt (SSMV), a program that offers high school students a four-year, interdisciplinary, research-centered learning experience at Vanderbilt University, Dr. Deweese administers, implements, and innovates the curricular framework of the SSMV. For the last six years, she has collaborated on educational outreach projects with the Vanderbilt Center for Addiction Research to educate high school and middle school students on the neurobiology of addiction and its effects on the adolescent brain through neuroscience-based education efforts.

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  • Kendra Oliver

    Kendra Oliver

    Kendra Oliver aims to impact human experiences with health and life sciences through a user-centered approach to digital products, creating compelling science stories that engage diverse audiences and foster dialogue about cutting-edge research. With a background in pharmacology research and over six years in educational technology, Kendra holds a professional degree in user experience design. She combines a Ph.D.-level understanding of pharmacology with extensive experience in digital communication, branding, and multimedia production. Passionate about leveraging UX design to develop innovative solutions in science and health sectors, Kendra excels in user and market research, employing data-driven strategies to explore new audiences and markets. Her work emphasizes equity and accessible design, aiming to tell the stories of those traditionally underserved by science and promoting inclusivity in scientific research.

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  • Brad Grueter

    Brad Grueter

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  • Elana Milano

    Elana Milano

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  • Julio Ayala

    Julio Ayala

    Pilot Grant Awardee

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  • Megan Altemus

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Administrative Core

The administrative core serves as the central organizing entity for the four research projects, research core and dissemination core. Its primary goal is to facilitate the conduct and dissemination of research of the Vanderbilt AUD Research and Education Center (VAREC).

Research Core

The research core provides experimental and computational resources across the VAREC projects. A major goal of the core is to allow for aggregation of data for analyses across the projects which would not be possible in isolation. This is facilitated through utilization of shared experimental frameworks, such as the Structured Tracking of Alcohol Reinforcement (STAR) paradigm which was developed in the Siciliano Lab.

Dissemination Core

The dissemination core utilizes innovative approaches to engage the public to destigmatize discussion of alcohol use disorder (AUD) and increase understanding of the organ-based nature of this disorder. The core also provides virtual and in-person short courses to the national AUD research community to increase facility with modern cutting-edge neuroscience tools to reduce barriers to utilizing these technologies to advance alcohol research.

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875 Light Hall
2215 Garland Ave.
Nashville, TN 37232
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