Kristen Harris, PhD

The University of Texas at Austin
Professor, Department of Neuroscience
Fellow, Center for Learning and Memory
Institute for Neuroscience

Kristen M. Harris received her PhD (1982) at Northeastern Ohio University College of Medicine and Kent State, and then completed her postdoctoral training (1982-84) at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She was on the Neuroscience faculty of Harvard Medical School (1984-99) and Boston University (1999-02). She was a Professor, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, and Director of the Synapses and Cognitive Neuroscience Center at the Medical College of Georgia (2002-2006). Currently, she is a Professor of Neuroscience and Fellow in the Center for Learning and Memory and Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Texas at Austin (since 2006). She has received prestigious awards, including the Sloan Research Fellowship, Javits Merit Award, and a Brain Research Foundation Fellowship, and is widely sought as a national and international speaker. She has had continuous independent funding for her research since she was a graduate student, and has participated on numerous study sections for the National Institutes of Health and elsewhere. She is known for innovative teaching in her laboratory and writing course for undergraduate and graduate students. Currently, she serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) at Janelia Farms, The Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt Germany, and The Allen Institute for Brain Research. Scientific data and tools provided on her website (synapseweb.clm.utexas.edu) are widely used resources.