Barbara Juarez, PhD

Principal Investigator

Barbara’s research goals are driven by her scientific interests in the ways the brain becomes disordered in disease states. She believes that by understanding the molecular and cellular players that contribute to circuit function, we can identify novel targets for therapy.

Outside of lab, Barbara has a love for her family, her three cats, ice cream, hiking, vinyl records, movies, and video games.

Background: Barbara studied Biology as an undergraduate at Florida International University, where she had the opportunity to perform research as an MBRS-RISE fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Ophelia Weeks studying how loss of circulating hormones in female mice impacts learning and memory. She then became a PREP Scholar at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and continued there to complete her PhD in Neuroscience in the laboratory of Dr. Ming-Hu Han. Here, her interests in neurophysiology and individual differences in disease was sparked. She went on to work with Dr. Larry Zweifel at the University of Washington as a postdoctoral fellow. She learned how to harness the power of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technologies to investigate how ion channels mediate cellular and circuit function in associative learning. She is now using her unique mix of training to determine how regulators of intrinsic and extrinsic cell function contribute to disease states. Barbara has also pioneered initiatives that increase the representation and advocacy of underrepresented individuals in academic spaces and the professional development of junior scientists.