UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Gwendolyn Burgess, a postdoctoral fellow in biology at Penn State, has been awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Individual National Research Service Award from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). This competitive honor is awarded to those who show promise as independent researchers and aims to enhance their training experience.
The three-year, $237,708 award will support Burgess’ research to understand how alcohol changes neural signaling following binge alcohol consumption. Specifically, she will study groupings of neurons involved in reward or aversion.
“I am thrilled to be receiving this grant,” Burgess said. “This will allow us to better understand alcohol-induced changes in behavior as well as increase our understanding of basic biological changes that may vary throughout different brain regions.”
Burgess said binge alcohol consumption is associated with many long-term negative health effects. She explained that alcohol use disorder affects around 10% of the U.S. population ages 12 and older, and understanding alcohol-induced changes to the brain may help inform future treatments.
Burgess is a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Nikki Crowley, the director of the Penn State Neuroscience Institute at University Park and associate professor of biology. Burgess’ training is further supported by the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences and the Penn State Neuroscience Institute, where she has served for two years as co-lead of the neurobiology journal club.
“Gwen has distinguished herself as an exceptionally creative and rigorous scientist, and this award is a testament to both her talent and dedication,” said Crowley, faculty sponsor of Burgess’ fellowship. “Her project combines cutting-edge neuroscience approaches with important questions about how alcohol reshapes brain circuits involved in reward and aversion. This work is extremely important for how we understand the underlying biology that can cause shifts in pain processing and the perception of aversive experiences in individuals suffering from an alcohol use disorder and may ultimately inform treatment avenues.”
Burgess earned a doctoral degree in behavioral pharmacology from the University of Michigan in 2024 and a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Southwestern Oklahoma State University in 2017.