Inclusion and Power Dynamics in Academia

Sponsored by the Hans Lowenbach Memorial Fund. Kathryn C. Dickerson (Katie) graduated from the University of Rochester in 2006 with a Bachelor's degree in Brain and Cognitive Sciences. She completed her PhD in Behavioral and Neural Sciences at Rutgers University in 2011 under the supervision of Dr. Mauricio Delgado. Her graduate work examined the neural systems involved in learning and memory in healthy adults using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). She joined Dr. Alison Adcock's lab at Duke University as a post-doctoral scholar where she studied motivation and its impact on learning and memory systems in healthy adults and clinical populations. She expanded her skill-set to include real-time fMRI neurofeedback (giving individuals feedback from their brain while inside the MRI). In 2016 she was promoted to Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She is actively working on projects using real-time fMRI neurofeedback in individuals with depression and nicotine dependence. Her work has been funded by a T32 from the Duke Department of Neurobiology, an F32 from the National Institutes of Mental Health, and a KL2 from the Duke CTSI. Katie is passionate about making academia a more inclusive environment for women and other under-represented groups working in STEM fields. She co-founded the group SPEAK (Scientists Promoting Equity And Knowledge) to discuss issues related to gender and inclusion in academia.