Kristen started her lab in the Pharmacology Department at Weill Cornell Medicine in June 2016. She received her PhD in 2010 from Duke University, where she studied estrogen-mediated neural plasticity during learning and memory. She then completed her postdoc in the laboratory of Thomas Kash at the UNC School of Medicine, where she characterized neuropeptide signaling mechanisms of binge alcohol drinking and investigated the effects of chronic exposure to stress and alcohol on limbic circuits. Kristen is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and active faculty member in the Pharmacology and Neuroscience graduate programs in the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences and in the Tri-Institutional MD-PhD program. She also serves as the Co-director of the Training in Pharmacological Sciences (TIPS) predoctoral NIGMS-sponsored T32 training grant.