Matthew Coooper

Principal Investigator

I am an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Tennessee. I received my Bachelors degree in Animal Behavior from Bucknell University in 1994 and my PhD in Biological Psychology from the University of Georgia in 1999. In graduate school my research focus was on aggression, dominance relationships, and reconciliation in Assamese macaques. After graduation I became a post-doc at Mysore University in India where I extended my research on primate socioecology to bonnet macaques. In 2002, I joined Dr. Kim Huhman's lab as a post-doc at Georgia State University and began studying neurobiological mechanisms controlling dominance relationships and social defeat stress in Syrian hamsters. Although I miss the monkeys, the research with hamsters has provided a wonderful opportunity to study the neural mechanisms controlling complex social behavior!

Graduate Students

Megan Cannon

mcannon6@vols.utk.edu

Megan received a Bachelors degree in Psychology from the University of Georgia in spring 2015 where she was a research assistant in the Clinical and Cognitive Neuroscience Lab.  She examined cognitive control in people with schizophrenia using fMRI.  She then received a Masters in Experimental Psychology from Augusta University.  At Augusta University she examined sex and age differences in pain-stimulated and pain-depressed behaviors.  She also examined the effects of analgesic drugs on the expression of pain.  Currently, Megan is examining the relationship between dominance status and coping behaviors and cellular mechanisms that underlie this relationship.

Conner Whitten

cwhitte9@vols.utk.edu

Conner received his BA in Psychological Science from California State University San Marcos where he was a research assistant in a neuroendocrinology maternal behavior mouse laboratory. He examined the role of the hypothalamic neuropeptide hypocretin 1 (HCRT-1) on the modulation of maternal motivation. Conner has done two summer research programs: one at the NIH/NINDS using MRI techniques to look at neuroinflammation in patients with rare genetic disorders and the second at the University of Colorado at Boulder where he looked at cellular and molecular mechanisms involved with pair bonding in prairie voles. As an undergraduate he also worked with his local Native American communities on a Pill Take Back program, to reduce the misuse and abuse of opioid drug usage. Conner is currently examining underlying neuronal circuitries, cellular and molecular mechanisms, and hormonal receptors that may be involved during acute social stress and coping behaviors in Syrian Hamsters.​

Undergraduate Students

Annie Loewen 

aloewen@vols.utk.edu

Annie is a senior majoring in Neuroscience and Psychology. She is interested in how emotional intelligence and resiliency manifest in brain chemistry as well as behavior. Annie's career goals include pursuing graduate education in behavioral neuroscience with an emphasis on the neural circuits controlling stress resilience.

Thomas Clarity

tclarity@vols.utk.edu

Thomas is a senior majoring in neuroscience with a minor in psychology. Specifically, he is interested in neurodegenerative diseases and psychiatric disorders. Thomas hopes to pursue a career as a physician-scientist after graduation. In the lab, he studies acute stress-induced neuroinflammation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. In addition to the Cooper Lab, Thomas works as a Cognitive Extern at the Pat Summitt Alzheimer's Clinic. 

Connor Borresen

cborrese@vols.utk.edu

Under construction...

Neha Sagarad

nsagarad@vols.utk.edu

Neha is a junior majoring in Neuroscience and Psychology with aspirations to become a doctor at Vanderbilt. In addition to helping with small tasks around the lab, she works on Megan Cannon's "Flip Project" by scoring behavior on female Syrian Hamsters. Some of her other responsibilities separate from the lab include being a Peer Mentor for the University, and an undergraduate teaching assistant for a Biology 159 Lab. 

Matthew Jenkins

mjenki40@vols.utk.edu

My name is Matt Jenkins and I am a senior majoring in Neuroscience with a minor in biology. After graduating I plan on attending a Physician Assistant program. I am very interested in how neural mechanisms influence behavior and psychopharmacology. In the lab I am currently studying how social status and inflammation affect stress related coping strategies in Syrian hamsters. 

Mason Rodriguez

rrodri15@vols.utk.edu

Mason is a sophomore majoring in Neuroscience. He plans to go to medical school and become a physician. In his free time, he likes to go rock climbing and hiking. 

Maya Scarborough

mscarbr5@vols.utk.edu

My name is Maya Scarbrough and I am currently enrolled in my second year at the University of Tennessee. I am majoring in neuroscience and joined Cooper Lab in order to dive deeper within this major and have the opportunity to work with graduate students that will help to enhance my curriculum. Currently, I am working on a project that will look at how PNN’s differ between dominant and subordinate hamsters. The goal of this is to see if stress affects PNN’s structure and/or amount. My future career goal is to become an orthodontist. My hobbies outside of the lab include working out, volunteering, and baking.

Sydney Wyatt

swyatt8@vols.utk.edu

Sydney is a junior majoring in Neuroscience and minoring in public health. She is specifically interested in the relationship between pharmacodynamics and neurobiological mechanisms and how these relations manifest in behavioral responses. Aside from working in the lab, she is the journal club leader and social media chair of the Advancement of Neuroscience club. She’s also involved with Alpha Epsilon Delta, a pre-health society. After undergrad, Sydney wants to enter a doctoral program for Neuroscience in hopes of working in industry for a company such as the NIH. ​

Lab Alumni

Graduate Students

J. Alex Grizzell, ph.d

J.alex.grizzell@colorado.edu

Alex defended his PhD in the Department of Psychology's Neuroscience and Behavior program at UT in September, 2019. His dissertation work probed the role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in experiential resilience/susceptibility to acute social defeat. Specifically, he demonstrated that dominant Syrian hamsters (who develop a resistance to the effects of acute social defeat) more readily recruit a stress-reducing neural circuit during acutely traumatic stress which projects from the vmPFC to the serotonin-producing, dorsal raphe nucleus. Alex also found that following stress-resistant "training", the vmPFCs of dominant hamsters appear protected from stress-induced neuroinflammation and cellular and synaptic degeneration, which may also deleteriously impede vmPFC function in more vulnerable populations during stress. While at UT, Alex also led collaborative projects with Dr. Rebecca Prosser's laboratory to investigate how alcohol or tobacco can alter resilience to traumatic stress and teamed up with Dr. Todd Freeberg to study how anthropogenic noise alters foraging and agonistic behavior in wild avian populations of East Tennessee. Currently a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Mike Saddoris's laboratory at The University of Colorado, Boulder, Alex is investigating how learned stress resilience alters cocaine self-administration.

Brooke n. dulka, ph.d

dulka.uwm.edu

Brooke received her PhD in Biological Psychology in 2018. Quite prolific during her tenure at UT, Brooke authored an average of 2 papers per year, with 5 first authored publications and another upcoming. Brooke's dissertation work focused on the neural circuitry of stress resilience where she identified a role of an infralimbic cortex to BLA circuit in resistance to conditioned defeat using tract-tracing and chemogenetic tools. Brooke was also involved in multiple collaborative projects with the laboratories of Drs. Rebecca Prosser, Subimal Datta, and Shawn Campagna where she and others probed the roles of brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in stress and memory, and also characterized and compared the brain metabolites from stress resilient and vulnerable populations in both select mice and hamster strains. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Fred Helmstetter's laboratory at The University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. 

Catie Clinard, ph.d

cclindard@daltonstate.edu

Catie received her PhD in Biological Psychology in 2016. Her dissertation work focused on the neural mechanisms controlling resiliency to social stress. Specifically, she utilized the lab's dominant/subordinate model in Syrian Hamsters to identify the role of testosterone and androgen receptors in modulating resistance to social stress. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Dalton State College. 

Lauren bader, ph.d

Lauren received her MS in Biological Psychology in 2013.  Her research focused on the involvement of 5-HT1A receptors in the development of conditioned defeat behavior and fear memories.  She received her PhD student at the University of Tennessee in the Child and Family Studies Department and is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan, Department of Psychology.

KAtie morrison, ph.d

Katie received her PhD in Biological Psychology in 2012. Her dissertation focused on the mechanisms by which dominance status leads to conditioned defeat resiliency. She is currently a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Tracy Bale's lab at the University of Maryland. 

Marquinta harvey, m.s.

Marquinta received her MS degree in Biological Psychology in 2011. Her research focused on the involvement of 5-HT2C receptors on the acquisition and expression of conditioned defeat. 

Undergraduate students

Elena bagatelas

Elena majored in Neuroscience with a minor in Psychology. She is interested in the physiological effects of drugs on the brain, as well as neurological disorders that stem from drug use. In addition to the Cooper Lab, she is an intern at the Cole Neuroscience Center. 

Kimberely Bress

Kim majored in Neuroscience and Mental Health through the College Scholars Program. She is interested in both the neurophysiological and psychological underpinnings of disorders such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, anxiety, and depression.  Kim is currently involved with a neural circuitry experiment that is looking at the connection between the ventral medial prefrontal cortex and basolateral amygdala, as well as the ventral hippocampus.

Abigail Barnes

Abigail Barnes received a BA in Neuroscience and a BA in Psychology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in December 2014. As a Research Technician in our lab, her research focused on the relationship between social status and responses to non-social stressors. 

Cody burleson

Cody Burleson received a Bachelors degree in Biochemistry, Cellular & Molecular Biology and in Psychology, with a minor in Chemistry, from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in May 2013. As a Research Technician in our lab, his research focused on the effects of social play deprivation during development on susceptibility to social defeat in adulthood and the circuitry involved. 

Some of out former undergraduate students and where are they now...

Nate Graham
Hanna Jang
​Samuel Adler (PA program at Vanderbilt University)
Emily McMahon
Sahba Seddighi (MPhil program in Epidemiology at University of Cambridge)
Lauren Debusk
Mohan Muvvala (DO program at Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine at New Mexico State University)
Robert Pederson (Biotechnology MS program at Johns Hopkins University)
Nathan Donnell (Creighton University School of Medicine)
Ellen Ford (Research Technician at Stanford University School of Medicine)
Joseph Carboni
Molly Sullivan (University of Kentucky College of Medicine)
Sonya Gross (Psychological and Brain Sciences PhD program at the University of California in Santa Barbara)
Jordan Lakin (DO program at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine)
Danielle Gerhard (Biological Psychology PhD program at Yale University)
Colleen McLaughin (Neurobiology PhD program at Case Western Reserve University)
Travis Goode (Biological Psychology PhD program in Texas A&M University)
Louden Wright (Veterinary School at the UT College of Veterinary Medicine)
Avery Nolan (MD program at East Tennessee State University College of Medicine)
Daniel Curry (Neuroscience PhD program at Emory University)
Cody Swallows (MD/PhD program at University of Tennessee Health Science Center)
Jason Schumer (Neurobiology PhD program at University of Chicago)