Elizabeth Catania, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of the Practice of Neuroscience
Director of Undergraduate Studies and Independent Studies; Associate Director, A&S College Core
Elizabeth Catania is Associate Professor of the Practice of Neuroscience and the Director of Independent Studies in Neuroscience. She is also the Associate Director of the A&S College Core.
Dr. Catania earned her B.A. in Neuroscience from the University of Delaware and her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Vanderbilt University, and did a post-doctoral fellowship at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center. Her training and research focused on the development of brain circuitry related to social and emotional function. Her current research focus is on improving educational practices through inclusive teaching, enhancing undergraduate research experiences, and improving experiential learning more broadly.
She teaches courses on nervous system development and neuroendocrinology. She also developed, coordinates, and teaches sections of “Research Kickstart.” This course is a discussion section accompanying the first semester of independent research for Neuroscience students. The course was designed to foster student learning communities that provide a secondary faculty mentor, clarify expectations about working in research labs, and help students develop skills they need to feel confident during their lab experiences.
Dr. Catania is also a Trained Facilitator of Entering Research, a member of the Learning Assistant Program at Vanderbilt, and serves on the Editorial Board of Brain, Behavior and Evolution.
Representative Publications
C. J. Brame, E. H. Catania, K. L. Friedman, H. J. Johnson, J. Watkins, H. Badgandi, L. Claiborne, K. A. Clements, N. Creanza, J. Gilpin, L. Plate, A. E. Seiffert, and T. P. Clements (2024) Best practices for expanding an undergraduate learning assistant program: observations from a learning community of instructors in K.N. Rainville, D. Title, and C. Desrochers, eds. Faculty Learning Communities: Communities of Practice that Support, Inspire, Engage and Transform Higher Education Classrooms. North Carolina: IAP.
E.H. Catania (2023) “Using course-based learning communities to improve undergraduate research experiences.”, 43rd Annual Meeting of the JB. Johnston Club for Evolutionary Neuroscience.
K. C. Catania and E. H. Catania (2015) Comparative Studies of Somatosensory Systems and Active Sensing in Patrik Krieger and Alexander Groh, eds. Sensorimotor Integration on the Whisker System. New York: Springer.
S. Qiu, D. L. Champagne, M. Peters, E. H. Catania, E. J. Weeber, P. Levitt, A. F. Pimenta (2010) Loss of limbic system-associated membrane protein leads to reduced hippocampal mineralocorticoid receptor expression, impaired synaptic plasticity and spatial memory deficit. Biological Psychiatry, 68(2), 197-204.
E. H. Catania, A. Pimenta, P. Levitt. (2008) Genetic Deletion of Lsamp Causes Exaggerated Behavioral Activation in Novel Environments. Behavioral Brain Research, 188 (2), 380-390.