Dr. Yvonne M. Ulrich-Lai, PhD – Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Systems Physiology

Yve graduated with a BS in biology from Harvey Mudd College in 1994. She received a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Minnesota in 2002 under the mentorship of Dr. William C. Engeland, where she received a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral Fellowship to study neural regulation of adrenal growth and function.  She then pursued postdoctoral training with Dr. James Herman under the support of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Institutional NRSA Postdoctoral Fellowship.  This was followed by NIH-supported (K01) training as a junior faculty with Dr. Steve Woods studying brain regulation of feeding behavior, metabolism and energy balance. Yve has been a faculty member in the College of Medicine at the University of Cincinnati since 2007.

Dana Buesing – Principal Research Assistant

Dana is the Ulrich-Lai lab manager.  She has over 20 years of research experience, and has been in the Ulrich-Lai lab for the past 7 years.  Dana is a key contributor to all lab projects.  

Alex Sabo – Research Assistant

Alex graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 2017 with a BS in Biomedical science. He has been with the lab since 2019 as a Research Assistant and is leading our project looking at the role of stress hormone signaling in gastrointestinal lymph.

Ivanka Rainer – Graduate Student

Ivanka is pursuing a PhD in Neuroscience graduate program. Ivanka received her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Kentucky with a dual major in Neuroscience and Biology.   Her research is focused on understanding how a history of palatable feeding alters brain endocannabinoid signaling. 

Houda Nashawi – Graduate Student

Houda received her BS in Pharmacy from Kuwait University and a MS in Neuroscience from the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York. She is now a third year neuroscience PhD student. She is interested in understanding the neurological basis of anxiety and depression. In the Ulrich-Lai lab, she is studying the neurological basis of stress and stress resilience by food reward in rodent models, with a focus on neurocircuitry mechanisms.