Dr. Fereshteh (Feri) Nugent received her Ph.D. in Neurophysiology from Tarbiat Modarres University in Tehran, Iran, in 2003. She became a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University from 2003 to 2008. In 2009, she joined the faculty of the Department of Pharmacology at Uniformed Services University and is now a tenured Full Professor at Pharmacology and Neuroscience Departments. Dr. Nugent is an Editorial Board Member of Nature Communications Biology at Cellular & Molecular Neuroscience Section, an Associate Editor of Frontiers in Synaptic Neuroscience and Frontiers in Pharmacology. She is also a member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Neuroscience Research and Cells. She was a standing member of the Neurobiology of Motivated Behavior (NMB) NIH study section from 2020-2023 and continues to serve as an ad-hoc reviewer for NIH study section and international grant agencies. She is a member of the Society for Neuroscience (SFN), American Physiological Society (APS) and an alumni member of the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO). Research in her laboratory explores effects of severe early life stress and mild traumatic brain injuries on synaptic transmission and plasticity of distinct reward and motivational circuits. To identify molecular, synaptic, neuromodulatory and circuit mechanisms contributing to motivated behavior as well as neuropsychiatric illnesses and vulnerability to drug addiction following stress and brain trauma, her lab uses a variety of neuroscience techniques that include slice electrophysiology, immunohistochemistry and behavioral techniques combined with viral-based tracing and labeling, optogenetic circuit mapping and chemogenetics.