Allison received her PhD in Psychology from UF in 2016 (PI Mark Lewis). She joined the Knackstedt lab as a post-doctoral associate after graduation and continued until July 2018, when she joined the Psychology Department at SUNY Geneseo as a tenure-track Assistant Professor. Her work focused on the interaction between learning and glutamate homeostasis in the regulation of relapse to cocaine.
Carly Logan earned her PhD in August 2020. Her dissertation work focused on the regulation of glutamate levels in the nucleus accumbens during cocaine relapse. She is currently a post-doctoral associate in the Neuroscience Dept. at UF.
Yasmin joined the lab in May 2016, supported by an NIGMS R25 aiming to transition students from community college (Santa Fe) to UF. The R25 allowed Yasmin to work in the Knackstedt lab while still a student at Santa Fe. After admission to UF, Yasmin applied for and won a spot in the MARC GatorSTAR program. During her time in the lab, Yasmin has made valuable contributions to many projects, with one first author paper reporting a dose-dependent effect of CNO on cocaine-induced locomotion in cocaine-experienced rats. She has also pioneered the use of DREADDs in the lab, conducting important proof-of-concept studies demonstrating that Gi-DREADDS inhibit PFC-NAc activity after cocaine administration. Yasmin earned her B.S. from UF in 2020 and entered the Neuroscience PhD program at Johns Hopkins.
Bethany earned her PhD in the Knackstedt lab in 2018. Her dissertation used a polysubstance use model of cocaine and alcohol self-administration in rats to assess glutamate changes in the nucleus accumbens core, now published in Neuropsychopharmacology (Stennett et al., 2019). For fun she likes to row with a local crew team and play with her two dogs. Dr. Stennett is currently a post-doctoral associate in the lab of Dr. Jeff Boissenault (UF).
Natalie graduated in August 2016. Her dissertation work focused on stress- and plasticity-related gene expression in BLA, hippocampus and mPFC in a rodent model of comorbid PTSD-cocaine use disorder (Hadad et al., 2016). She is currently a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Psychology at Santa Fe College (Gainesville, FL). She enjoys gardening and yoga.