Grafe joined the Bryn Mawr faculty in fall 2018.
Assistant Professor of Psychology Laura Grafe
The primary goal of my research is to better understand how stress affects the brain. I am particularly interested in sex differences in the neurobiological response to stress, and how this may lead to behavioral phenotypes relevant to mental health such as cognitive impairment, sleep deficits, and changes in appetite. My research program utilizes a rodent model of repeated stress to elucidate behavioral, endocrine, and molecular mechanisms involved in stress vulnerability. I have published a wide variety of peer-reviewed articles on this topic and received funding from National Institutes of Mental Health for this area of study.
My teaching repertoire will include a 200-level behavioral neuroscience course (both in lecture and laboratory formats) as well as many upper level neuroscience courses. These 300-level courses will delve into how stress affects the brain (Stress Neuroscience), how drugs affect brain-behavior relations (Psychopharmacology), and how our brain forms memories (Neurobiology of Learning and Memory).
The Department of Psychology offers the student a major program that allows a choice of courses from among a wide variety of fields in psychology: biological, clinical, cognitive, cultural, developmental, health, and social psychology. In addition to the considerable breadth offered, the program encourages the student to focus on more specialized areas through advanced coursework, seminars, and through supervised research. Several courses include individual research projects conducted under the supervision of faculty members. Psychology majors may choose to minor in Child and Family Studies, Computational Methods, Health Studies, or Neuroscience.