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Kimberly Nixon, PhD

Professor and James T. Doluisio Fellow of Pharmacology and Toxicology, The University of Texas at Austin

Dr. Kimberly Nixon is Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology, James T. Doluisio Centennial Fellow, and Director of an NIAAA-funded T32 training grant at The University of Texas at Austin. She received a B.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology (Behavioral Neuroscience) at UT-Austin. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies, she accepted a faculty position at the University of Kentucky where she rose through the ranks to full professor. In 2018, she was recruited home to UT-Austin where her laboratory continues to lead the field in studying alcohol’s effects on neural stem cells and adult neurogenesis as well as make provocative discoveries on the role of neuroimmune signaling in alcohol effects on brain and behavior across the lifespan. Dr. Nixon’s novel approach to studying alcohol-induced neurodegeneration and recovery has been continuously funded by the NIAAA for over 15 years and received numerous awards including the 2008 Research Society on Alcoholism Young Investigator Award and a 2009 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) awarded by President Barack Obama. Dr. Nixon is an active member of the Research Society on Alcohol and Society for Neuroscience.