Physiology & Biophysics welcomes Kevin Beier, Ph.D

The Department of Physiology and Biophysics is excited to welcome Kevin Beier, Ph.D. as an Assistant Professor.  

Read more about Kevin and his background:

Kevin Beier is a multi-disciplinary scientist interested in understanding the molecular and neural circuit basis learning and memory in normal and pathological states. His lab will have two main goals: one, to pioneer the development of molecular technologies to interrogate circuit structure/function with enhanced spatial/temporal resolution; two, to investigate how experiences modulate synaptic and circuit properties in limbic brain circuits and how these in turn influence motivated behaviors.

Kevin graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison with majors in Biochemistry, Biology, Molecular Biology, Zoology, and French, as well as a certificate in Leadership. He received his PhD in Genetics in 2012 from Harvard University, where he studied in the lab of Dr. Connie Cepko. There he worked at the intersection of virology, genetics, and neuroscience to engineer viruses for transsynaptic applications in the central nervous system, including developing viruses for anterograde transsynaptic and cell type-specific labeling.

He conducted his postdoctoral training in the labs of Drs. Robert Malenka and Liqun Luo, where he continued to devise new methodologies for elucidation of neural circuit structure-function relationships. He focused on the ventral tegmental area, a midbrain structure that controls a variety of motivated behaviors principally through release of the neuromodulator dopamine. His most recent work demonstrated the development and application of a novel unbiased method to identify the brain regions and molecular-level adaptations that drive experience-dependent learning.